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NATURAL THEOLOGY; 


OB, 


RATIONAL THEISM. 


By M. VALENTINE, D.D., LL.D. 


Ex-PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR OF 
THEOLOGY IN THE LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 
GETTYSBURG, Pa. 


EIGHTH EDITION. 


SILVER, BURDETT & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
New York... BOSTON .. . Caicaco. 


1900. 





PREFACE. 





HIS volume presents the substance of lectures on the 
subject, given to students in the author’s recent rela- 

tion as President of Pennsylvania College. He was led to 
this method of instruction by the absence of any suitable 
text-book covering the various forms of the theistic evi- 
dences. Though the matter is here somewhat rearranged 
and reshaped, the general discussion has been determined 
by the needs of the College class room and the purpose of 
furnishing a reasoned and correct view of the truth on 
this incomparably important subject, The aim of the 
book, therefore, is, not to offer any new or original view 
of the theistic question, but to bring together the 
various approved evidences and furnish a compendious 
statement of them as they now stand in the best accred- 
ited thought and knowledge of our times. It is didac- 
tic, rather than polemical. The difficulty of the under- 
taking has been fully appreciated. No subject could be 
named, the discussion of which would lead through such a 
mass of conflicting metaphysics or traverse more varied 
and antagonistic speculation. The scientific theories and 


hypotheses of the recent years have greatly tended to 


314990 


iv PREFACE. 


make the basis of theism the focal point of the thought of 
the age. Though adverse speculation, it is believed, has 
not overthrown any of the old evidences in Natural The- 
ology, it has yet made desirable such changes as shall har- 
monize the statement of them with the advanced knowledge 
now possessed. Such adjustive modification has been here 
attempted, as far as the necessary brevity of presentation 
has allowed. In consideration of the general purpose of 
the discussion, the author has felt at liberty to draw freely 
from the immense amount of literature that has been 
accumulated about the subject. He has at the same time 
endeavored to make proper acknowledgments. Though it 
is vain to imagine that the statement of the evidences here 
given will satisfy all, it is, nevertheless, hoped that its pub- 
lication, in response to the frequently expressed wish of 
former pupils, will in some humble measure serve the great 
cause of truth, in,supplying to students and other intelli- 
gent readers a brief view of the theistic evidences as con- 


sidered apart from special revelation. 


Geitysburg, Pa., June 1, 1885. 


{ 


| 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 


1. Definition and General View of the Subject - 1-9 
2. The Idea of God—Its Content, Genesis, 


and Original Form - - - - 9-20 
PART IL 
EVIDENCES OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 
Preliminary Statements and Division > 2 21-25 
CHAPTER I. 
PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 
1. The Universality of the Idea of God + 26-30 
2. The Religious Instinct of the Race - ° 30-36 
3. The Benign Influence of Belief in God - 36-40 
4, The Doctrine of God Affords the Best 
Explanation of the Phenomena of Nature 40-43 
CHAPTER II. 
Tur OnToLoGICcAL EVIDENCE. 
1. The Germs of It in Plato - . ° 45 
2. Anselm’s Argument - - - - : 46 
3. Descartes’ View . - - - ° 44 
4. Bishop Butler’s Statement - . - . 47 
5. Cousin’s Account of It - - . - 47 


314950 


vi CONTENTS. 


6. Various References - - <a 5s & 48 
7% Summary of the Import and Value of This 
Evidence - : - - > 48-58 


CHAPTER III. 
THe CosmoLocicat EvipENcE. 


1. Based on the Principle and Law of Causa- 
tion—Origin of the Idea of Cause— 
Definition of Cause —The Law of Causa- 
tion—The Law Known Intuitively — 
Assumed in All Processes of Knowledge— 

Not Simply from an Impossibility of 
Transcending Experience— Not Merely 
a Subjective Necessity — Recognized by 
All Science - - . - - - 59-65 

2. The Universe Finite and Dependent : 65, 66 

3. Attempts to Invalidate the Conclusion —The 
Law of Causation Alleged to Have Only 
Subjective Value—The Supposition of 
an Eternal Universe - - = 2 66-72 

4. The Force and Reach of the Cosmological 
Ewidence - . + - - - 92, 73 


CHAPTER IV. 


Tue TELEoOLoGIcAL EvIpDENCE. 
General Account and Discussion of the Teleo- 
logical Evidence - Saas - : - 476 


SECTION I, EXPLANATION AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 


1. Definition of Final Cause or Design - 76-79 
2. The Relation of Final to Efficient Cause’ - 79-82 
3. The Alternative to Final Cause is Chance 82, 83 


SECTION Il. THE REALITY OF FINAL CAUSES IN 


Oop © wr 


CONTENTS. 


The Validity of Final Cause here regarded as 
Resting on Experience and Induction - 


The Reasoning Employed Analogical and 


Inductive - - - - - - 
The Phenomena of the World Viewed as 
Effects - - - - - - - 


The Two Points to be Proved—the Reality 
of Final Causes in Nature, and that This 
Final Cause must be Referred to Mind 


. Organisms - - = 2 = es e 
. Instinct - - - . = = 2 


General Constitution of the World” - - 


. Chemistry . - ° = = = 


Life 2 = ~ bl = = . = 


. Mind - - - - - - 4 


vil 


83-86 


86-92 


92-94 


94-96 


NATURE. 


97-116 
116-131 
131-141 
141-154 
155-163 
163-176 


SECTION III. FINAL CAUSE IN NATURE DEMANDS 


INTELLIGENCE AND WILL, 
Intelligence the Natural Explanation of 
Adaptation of Means to Ends, and the 
Only Cause of It that We Know . - 
The Immanence of Finality Fails to Vacate 
the Need of an Intelligent Cause - 
A Denial of an Intelligent Cause Throws Us 
back on Chance - - - - - 
The Leading Explanations of the Hypothesis 
of Evolution Concede the Necessity of an 
Originating and Ordaining Intelligence 
Demanded by the Existence and Supremacy 
of the Human Mind . : - - 
The Whole Body of the Inductive Sciences 
Rests on This Assumption - - : 


179-183 
183-186 


186-194 


194-199 
199-204 


204, 205 


viii CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER V. 
THe Mora. EvipENcE. 


1. Directly from the Existence and Action of 

Conscience - - - - - - 206-213 
2. From the Fact of a Moral Administration 

over the World - - - : - 213-216 
3. From the Relation between the Moral Law 

and Happiness - - - : - 216, 217 
Résumé of All the Evidences - - - 217-222 


PART IL. 


THE CHARACTER OF GOD—HIS RELATIONS TO THE 
UNIVERSE. 


CHAPTER I. 
Tue ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY. 
I. Self-Existence - - - - - 224 


Il. Eternity - - . - . . : 225 
III. Personality - -* 2 2 2 «© 225-227 
IV. Spirituality = <6. | 2) a 227 
V. Unity =: = =. + =" 227 
VI. Infinity - - - - - - 228 


VIL A Group of Attributes Involved in the 
Divine Personality as Infinite - e 229-231 
VIII. Holiness’ - - - . - ° 231 
IX. Goodness - : - - - - 231-251 


CHAPTER ILI. 
Tue RELATION oF Gop TO THE UNIVERSE. 


I. Whether Transcendent, or Immanent, or Both 252-259 
II. The Supreme or Ultimate End in Creation 259-269 


INTRODUCTION. 


I. DEFINITION AND GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT. 


1. NaruraL THEoLoey treats of the existence and. 
character of God, as these may be known from reason 
and nature. It investigates the evidences of His being, 
and seeks to determine His attributes and relation to the 
world. The conclusions reached through this investiga- 
tion, and established as valid on just principles of evi- 
dence, form what may be accepted as Rational Theism, or 
the doctrine of God as ascertainable apart from super- 
natural revelation. 

2. The fundamental idea upon which Natural Theology 
proceeds is that, if there be a God as the Creator or First 
Cause of the universe, His existence and character may 
and must be found impressed upon it and discoverable 
from it. To some degree, at least, the author of a work 
is necessarily revealed in the*work he has done. With 
respect to simply human affairs this principle holds fully. 
In every product of thought and skill we read the exist- 
ence and mind of the producer. From the rudest mechan- 
ism to the highest and most complex products of inven- 
tion and the fine arts, from the roughly shaped arrow- 
head of savagery to the steam-engine or chronometer of 
science, the thing made contains and reflects the thought 
and purpose of the maker, The idea is fixed and legible 
in the product. Whatever a man in the creative energy 


‘2 INTRODUCTION. 


of his will, under the guidance of his intelligence, does in 
the world, not only bears witness to his existence, but 
expresses his mind, skill, and character. The works of | 
men reveal them even more surely than their words, 

This principle has a twofold application in the investi- 
gations of Natural Theology. It is applied, first, with 
respect to the world of mind, or conscious human intelli- 
gence. If man is a creature of God, if his existence and 
nature have been given him by a Supreme First Cause, it 
is not only reasonable to expect, but absurd to doubt, that 
there is to be found in his mind some impress or reflection 
of His being, some mark of the workman on his work, 
It is fair to suppose that the human soul, or the rational 
nature of man, would mirror, possibly even to the soul’s 
own consciousness, the existence of its author. To say 
the least, it is fair to raise the question whether this may 
not be so, and to settle it by its appropriate evidences. 
The principle is applicable, secondly, with respect to the 
material universe. This, not only as a whole, but in all 
its parts and particulars, is justly viewed as entitled to 
bear testimony when the question of the being and 
‘character of a Maker is investigated. Not only according 
to the common understanding of men, but according to 
the fundamental conception and basis of science, the 
material cosmos holds and presents in its constitution and 
order some records of its origin and history, legible to the 
reason of those who honestly study it. If anyone should 
allege that this is only an assumption, incapable of abso- 
lute proof, it is enough to recall the fact that it is the 
necessary postulate upon which all the great structures of 
scientific explanation of the universe are founded and 
-uilt. Should it be said, as it often is, that nature con- 


INTRODUCTION. 3 


-ceals rather than reveals God, forming a veil behind which 
He is hidden as the action of physical causes goes cease- 
lessly'on, it is freely admitted that the eye of sense cannot 
behold Him. But the vision of reason, interpreting these 
physical causes, can penetrate the veil and see the reality 
and glory of the Power that operates through them. 

3. Natural Theology proceeds also upon the legitimacy 
and reliability of the so-called intwitional, a priori, or 
necessary truths, and of the laws of logical thought. It 
accepts as trustworthy, and as standing for objective real- 
ity, the ideas of Space, Time, Being and Relations, Sub- 
stance and Attribute, and the Law of Causation. In doing 
so, there is no necessity of settling the dispute among 
philosophers as to the precise way in which they originate. 
For both intuitionalists and their opponents recognize 
that they are essential and fundamental in human thought, 
incapable of being shown to be invalid or misleading, and 
impossible to be denied without repudiating and over- 
throwing the foundations of science and knowledge. 
Though there is no good ground to doubt the substantial 
correctness of the view which explains these primary 
truths as “intuitions” of the reason, necessarily developed 
in connection with and on occasion of the action of the 
sense-perceptions and consciousness, we need not rest 
their validity upon any particular explanation of their 
origin or any special way of designating them. It is 
enough to know that their authority is invincible in the 
practical thinking and reasoning of the race, and that 
science or philosophy cannot impeach them without sui- 
cide. For they are necessarily assumed in all inductive 
and deductive reasoning, in all the research and the essen- 
tial processes through which conclusions are everywhere 


4 INTRODUCTION. 


established, Without them logic loses all its foundation 
principles, and moves in air. The arguments framed to 
overthrow them are themselves overthrown, making plain 
the impossibility of refuting their ruling authority. 

4, Natural Theology is a science, The investigation 
is conducted upon the accepted principles of scientific 
procedure. The method is that of exact observation of 
the realities of the mental and physical worlds, and a care- 
ful and logical interpretation of their indications under 
the application of the first principles and laws of thought. 
Nothing is to be claimed as established that is not sus- 
tained by the facts and the necessary demands of reason. 

5. The relation of Natural to Christian Theology is 
that of part to the whole. Belief in the existence of God 
is presupposed in our acceptance of a revelation. Natural 
Theology, therefore, lies at the basis of Revealed Theology, 
proving the existence of a Supreme Being to reveal Him- 
self. Revealed Theology accepts all that may be dis- 
covered and proved concerning God and His attributes 
from data in nature and consciousness, but adds im- 
mensely to this knowledge, especially in disclosing the 
scheme of grace and redemption through Jesus Christ. 

6. The beginnings of effort to construct a Natural 
Theology appear very early. In estimating its beginning, 
however, we must leave out of view all the ages in which 
men believed in the existence of God or of some supreme 
power without attempts to establish it by systematic or 
logical proof. Natural Theology must be distinguished 
from natural religion, the latter appearing long before the 
truths it implies were regularly and distinctly formulated. 
Moreover, the Hebrew people, forming a circle illuminated 
by special revelation, must be excluded from view in this 


INTRODUCTION. 2 


connection. Their religion was a revealed religion, and 
they constructed no Natural Theology. But the most 
ancient literatures of other nations present many of the 
truths of Natural Theology in more or less systematized 
form. The Vedus of the Hindus, the Zend-Avesta of the 
Persians, the Book of the Dead and other writings of the 
ancient Egyptians, contain illustrations of the earliest 
known efforts of the human mind toward a knowledge of 
God. Whatever theistic truth and faith are found among 
the Greeks and Romans must be counted as derived from 
reason and nature. Socrates and Plato, especially, among 
the Greeks, and Cicero and Seneca among the Romans, 
made earnest, and to some degree successful efforts to 
give rational account of men’s spontaneous faith in the 
divine existence, and their necessary conception of His 
character.’ In all ages of the Christian Church theolo- 
gians have claimed that the works of nature exhibit the 
power, wisdom, and goodness of their Author, and that 
revelation assumes this fact. To construct the knowledge 
thus attainable into a definite system, however, seems not, 
for a long time, to have awakened any marked effort. 
The Theologia Naturalis sive Liber Creaturarum of the 
Spanish physician, Raymond de Sabunde, teacher in the 
University of Toulouse in the early part of the fifteenth 
century, is said to have been the first work that, on the 
assumption that two books have been given men, one of 
nature and the other of revelation, confined itself to a 
theological interpretation of the former. Faustus Socinus, 
however, maintained that a Natural Theology was impos- 
sible, as no knowledge of God was attainable except from 


1 See Xenophon’s Memorabilia, 1,4; IV. 3, 13; Plato's Timaus; Cicero's De 
Natura Deorum, Lib. Il; Cocker’s Christianity and Greek Philosophy, pp. 
377-379. 


6 INTRODUCTION. 


the Scriptures. In this he has had but a feeble following. 
During the seventeenth century, Natural Theology rose in 
increasing prominence, and flourished in a sort of golden 
age in the eighteenth. Deistical writers sought to exalt 
it at the expense of Christianity, representing it as the 
real truth, to which the Scriptures added nothing of value. 
They looked on Christianity as simply a “ republication of 
natural religion.” But both these extreme views, the 
deistical exaggerations of nature and reason on the one 
hand, and the denial of the possibility of Natural Theology 
on the other, have failed to secure or hold the confidence 
of well balanced thinkers. The numerous able works which 
followed in the eighteenth century and since, of Clarke, 
Newton, Derham, Neuwentyt, Paley, and the Bridge- 
water Treatises by Chalmers, Whewell, Kidd, Roget, 
Buckland, and Sir Charles Bell, Lord Brougham’s Dis- 
course on Natural Theology, the Burnett Prize Essays 
by Thompson and Tulloch, Cooke’s Religion and Chemis- 
try, McCosh’s Typical Forms, Chadbourne’s Natural The- 
ology, Cocker’s Theistic Conception of the World, Flint’s 
Theism and Anti-Theistical Theories, Borden P. Bowne’s 
Studies in Theism, Diman’s Theistic Argument as Affected 
by Recent Theories, Janet’s Final Causes, Dr. S. Harris’ 
Philosophical Basis of Theism, and an immense number 
of review articles continually appearing, have given the 
subject great wealth of discussion. They have abundantly 
shown that while the Bible is to a large extent a republi- 
cation of theistic truths and spiritual laws discernible by” 
reason from nature and the conscience, and has, in the 
doctrines of redemption, given the materials of a dis- 
tinctively revealed theology, there are, nevertheless, 
abundant sources, and a clear place, for a reliable Natural 


INTRUVUCTION. liz 


Theology, and that this is necessary as laying the deep 
foundations for the Christian system. 

7. The importance of Natural Theology becomes evi- 
dent from its relation to all the great questions and 
interests of life. 

(1) To religion. If religion is to vindicate its reason- 
ableness and right to a place in human life, it must rest 
on an assured knowledge of the object of worship. This 
is true whether it be the Christian religion or any other. 
Christianity is a large phenomenon in the world. Other 
religions, also, all rest on belief in God. Unless the 
question of the existence and character of God be 
answered, and answered so as to satisfy the reason of man- 
kind, religion must lose its very foundation truths and 
die out from among men. Religion cannot stand if belief 
in God cannot be sustained and justified in reason. 

(2) To morality it is hardly less essential. If experi- 
ence teaches anything plainly, it is that there is no effect- 
ual dynamic for a pure, reliable, healthy morality apart 
from belief in the existence of God and a conviction of 
responsibility to Him as a holy and righteous governor.. 
To build up a sentiment of duty that can dominate the 
passions and hold steady sway against the temptations to 
vice, wrong doing, and destructive irregularities, without 
the quickening and supporting power of belief in a 
supreme ruler, is impossible. Atheistic ethical systems 
are practically impotent. They may present the ethical 
distinctions plainly, but their sanctions are gone. En- 
forcing motive power disappears when faith in a personal 
God is abandoned. Even common morality, in the ordi- 
nary plane of relationship between man and man in daily 
life, loses tone and nerve, and falls into corruption when- 


8 : INTRODUCTION. 


ever touched by the breath of skepticism on this point. 
But more is true. If there be a God, man must sustain 
moral relations, that is, relations of duty, to Him; and the 
human virtue that takes no account of Him must be at 
best one-sided and defective. Thus all the high and un- 
.speakable interests of morality are involved in the answer 
given to the question of the divine existence and govern- 
ment. ; 

(3) To the state and civil prosperity Natural Theology 
is of equal importance. If theism is essential to both 
religion and morality, it is at once evident that it must be 

essential also to social order and national welfare. The 
‘testimony of history is emphatic, that a well ordered and 
prosperous state is an impossibility without it. So strongly 
has the experience of nations reflected this truth, that 
_great statesmen have put it into the proposition that, were 
there no religion among a people one would have to be 
invented for state purposes. It is a very expressive fact 
in this connection, that in common law atheisi is counted 
as disqualifying a witness in courts of justice. The truths 
of Natural Theology are therefore of vital moment to all 
the great interests of society and the state. 

(4) They also concern philosophy and science. The 
theistic conception of the world is of necessity widely 
different from the atheistical conception of it. While the 
facts and phenomena of nature remain the same, the 
explanation of them, and their relations and significance, 
become greatly changed. If theism and atheism must 
necessarily bear different fruits in religion and morals, they 
must also produce different systems of science and philos- 
ophy. They cannot, and do not, solve the problems of 
nature, life, and mind in the same way. These will always 


INTRODUCTION. 9 


be found to depend very greatly on the position the scien- 
tist takes toward the truths which theology considers. 
The whole scientific system will take color from the light 
which falls upon it. He who finds in reason and nature 
clear evidence of a supreme intelligent First Cause, and he 
who finds there no proof of such Being — he who believes 
material force to be the potency and only source of all 
things, and he who believes that the universe originated 
and is ordered by an intelligent and self-existent Will, 
must inevitably look upon the world, life, history, and 
upon themselves so very differently, that the truth or falsity 
of the conclusions of theology becomes a matter of indis- 
putable and momentous importance. 


ve 


Il. THE IDEA OF GOD—ITS CONTENT, GENESIS, AND 
ORIGINAL FORM. 


1. TuE idea of God has been a variable conception, 
ranging from a very undefined impression of some Higher 
Power, as among barbarous tribes, to the distinct and 
developed conception of a Self-existent Personal Being, 
infinite in intelligence, power, and goodness, the First 
Cause, Maker, and Ruler of the universe, as found in the 
mind of the Christian philosopher and theologian. God 
is conceived of as the first principle, ground, and reason of 
all existence, not identical with the universe, but its 
Author, at once above and immanent in it. 

Cudworth says: “The true and proper idea of God, in 
its most contracted form, is this: A being absolutely per- 
fect.” ' 

Descartes defines the idea: “By the name of God I 


1 Int. System, Chap. IV, § 8. 


10 INTRODUCTION. 


understand a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, inde- 
pendent, omniscient, almighty, by which myself and all 
other things that are have been created and produced.” * 

Sir Isaac Newton: “The true God is a living, intelli- 
gent, powerful being, and from His other perfections it 
follows that He is supreme or most perfect. He is eternal 
and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, His dura- 
tion reaches from eternity to eternity, His presence from 
infinity to infinity. He governs all things, and knows all 
things that are or can be done. He is not eternity and 
infinity, but eternal and infinite. He is not duration or 
space, but he endures and is present.” * 

Dr. Henry N. Day, of New Haven: “God is an all- 
perfect being—one; real; of essential energy which is 
characterized as rational; absolute as to the grounds of 
His existence and action; infinite in duration, presence, 
and power; the source of all other being, and sovereign 
over all; and morally complete in holiness and blessed- 
ness.” * 

Dr. B. F. Cocker, University of Michigan: “ An un- 
conditioned will, or self-directive power, seeing its, own 
way, and having the reason and law of its action in itself 
alone.” * 

These definitions will suffice to give the chief elements 
of the idea as it is now matured in Christian theism. 
How far it could have been developed by the mere light 
of nature it is impossible to determine. Perhaps Aris- 
totle may be regarded as exhibiting the highest reach 
without revelation. But his statement: “ God is a living 
being, eternal, most excellent, so that life and continuous 


1Med., III. 2 Principia. 8 Outlines of Ontological Science, p. 235. 4 The- 
istic Conception of the World, p. 83. 


_— ee 


INTRODUCTION. 11 


and eternal duration of being belong to God,” falls far 
short of the fulness of conception presented in Christian 
doctrine. But it is not necessary to settle this question 
here. For, while the idea, so filled and rounded out in 
consequence of the full light of revelation, has been de- 
veloped into a form much beyond the possibilities of 
merely rational theology, the argument which Natural 
Theology proposes to conduct is equally valid upon a less 
complete conception. For its purposes the argument may, 
at the start, include in the idea of God no more than that 
of a Self-existent First Cause as the Creator and Ruler of 
the universe. . 

2. The genesis of the idea of God. How it first arose 
in the human mind, or fixed itself there, need not indeed 
be here settled. For it is not an essential point in the 
evidence of its truth. Yet it is of some importance, as 
certain theistic arguments gain or lose force according as 
one view or another is adopted on this point. 

There is a class of explanations that may at once be 
justly set aside, both because of their intrinsic absurdity 
and because they are refuted in the end by the whole 
force of the theistic evidence. The explanations, often 
repeated, which assert, for instance, that the notion of 
deity is a phantom, born originally of ignorant human 
dread and fear in presence of the terrible and mysterious 


phenomena of nature’; that it began in a superstitious 


reverence for natural forces; that it is a crafty invention 
of designing priests and rulers; that it arose from rever- 
ence for dead ancestors whom respect and affection 
elevated to divine position, all fall to pieces the moment 
earnest and philosophic inquiry is turned upon the sub- 


1 Lucretius: De Natura Rerum, Lib. VI, 50-70; Comte’s Positive Philosophy. 


12 INTRODUCTION. 


ject. The atheistic theories of our day, with whatever 
learning and skill they have been elaborated, are found 
resolvable into reconstructions and modifications of these 
inadequate and futile hypotheses.’ A sufficient refutation 
of them comes in the fact that they all derive religion 
from the lower human faculties, and represent its object 
of worship as only a creation of ignorance and mistaken 
fear. How then is its permanence to be accounted for? 
What is due to trembling ignorance must die when ignor- 
ance dies. The spectres of night must vanish when the 
day comes. But the conception of God has grown clearer 
and stronger as man has advanced in knowledge and 
science. The full radiance of the highest civilization has 
had no effect but to bring it up into purer and bolder 
distinctness and strength. The idea, concerning the valid- 
ity of which Natural Theology inquires, is one which, 
whatever be its genesis and explanation, thus maintains 
its place and authority, and has grown most positive 
under the fullest light of science and culture. The ex- 
planations which credit it to the gross ignorance and 
phantom fears of an early condition of human savagery 
are thoroughly overthrown by the simple fact that the 
strength of theism belongs to the present age and the 
highest civilization. 

But apart from these explanations, necessarily rejected 
by their utter insufficiency, there are three views that 
have been and may be held as to the origin of the idea. 

First, that it originated through a primitive revela- 
tion. The first man or first men are supposed to have 
received a knowledge of God by direct supernatural dis- 
closures of Himself and His will; and the various notions 


1 Strauss, Biichner, Bleek, Herbert Spencer, etc. 


INTRODUCTION. iS 


of a divine being, as found throughout the world, are 
looked upon as the broken and scattered rays of original 
revelation. The idea, thus given by special and imme- 
diate divine instruction, has been continued by tradition 
through all the ages and in all the branchings of the world- 
filling race. This view has been losing ground through 
the recent investigations and discussions of ethnology, 
philology, and comparative mythology.’ The discrediting 
of this explanation, however, is not necessarily a denial of 
a primitive revelation. It may readily be allowed that 
important supernatural instruction was given to the first 
human pair, furnishing the essential truths of religion, 
and that this knowledge was enlarged by repeated later 
communications. It is reasonable to believe that some 
rays of light thus given have reached into remotest places 
and may linger among many nations. But tradition has 
shown itself to be too uncertain an instrument to justify 
the belief that it has carried this truth into every tribe in 
which it is found, and has preserved it through all the 
darkness. The explanation seems insufficient to cover all 
the wide range of facts concerned. Moreover, it is not 
certain that though such revelation was given, the idea of 
God was entirely due to it or originated by it. It is 
doubtful whether it could have been more than the occa- 
sion of developing it; since in a divine manifestation at 
any time the human mind, it would seem, must at least 
identify as.God the being who so reveals himself. What- 
ever may be the occasion of the birth of the idea, the idea 
of God must have its genesis within the mind, rising there 
in recognition of the Revealer. If there be a God as the 


1Flint’s Theism, pp. 22, 338; Fairbairn’s Studies in Philosophy and Relig- 
ion, p. 21; Cocker’s Christianity and Greek Philosophy, pp. 86-96. 


14 INTRODUCTION. 


author of the universe, nature itself becomes a revelation 
of Him. Probably, therefore, we dare not credit super- 
natural revelation, any more than natural, with being 
more than the occasion of the subjective genesis of the 
concept of God. 

Secondly, that it has arisen naturally and spontane- 
ously in the human soul. This explanation branches into 
two forms. One is that the idea of God is given to con- 
sciousness purely from what is within the mind — not 
simply an @ priori necessary conviction, but one whose 
basis and developing force are wholly internal. It occurs 
when the soul looks down into the depths and contents of 
its own consciousness. This theory is illustrated in the 
view which traces it to a feeling of dependence and obli- 
gation, bringing the soul face to face with the divine. 
That to which the consciousness of dependence points is 
called God. Man, it is said, learns to pray before he 
learns to reason. “He feels within him,” says Dean 
Mansel, “the consciousness of a Supreme Being, and the 
instinct of worship, before he can argue from effects to 
causes or estimate the traces of wisdom and benevolence 


»1 Some have claimed 


scattered through the creation. 
that “there is a connection between God and the soul, as 
between light and the eye, sound and the ear, food and 


2 The other form of this explanation repre- 


the palate. 
sents the idea as springing up in the mind under the sug- 
gestive power of the external universe. It is awakened, 
as an inference, through the mind’s contemplation of 
nature, under the play of thought in the necessary action 
and reaction between reason and the external world. In 


the first of these forms, it is suggested by what the mind 


1 Limits of Religious Thought, p. 115. 2 Jbid, p. 249. 


INTRODUCTION. 15 


finds in itself; in the second, by what is external to it — 
from the revealing power of the great universe, speaking 
to us of its author. Whether the human soul, in its 
purely subjective data, would ever attain this so-called 
consciousness of God, is questionable. At least, no veri- 
fication of the claim is possible, since no human con- 
sciousness can ever be found wholly destitute of knowl- 
edge of external objects, to report the possibilities of 
this inner source alone. Indeed, the consciousness itself 
awakes only under the stimulation of the sense-percep- 
tions, and the intuitions become possible only in connec- 
tion with knowledge of the material world. But there 
can hardly be the least doubt that there is something in 
the existence, order, structures, forces, and movements 
of the grand universe in which we are placed, and their 
kindling action on the rational faculties of intuition and 
inference, that tends to originate and develop the idea 
of God in the human soul when its faculties are mature 
and in normal healthy action. 

This general explanation, finding the genesis of the 
idea, not in a primitive revelation, but in the natural and 
necessary action of the mind as impressed by the works of 
creation, has the advantage of being in harmony with the 
great fact of man’s unquestionably religious nature. He 
everywhere and in all ages appears with very original, pro- 
found, and almost ineradicable religious instincts and apti- 
tudes. There is force in the statement that if man were 
dependent on a supernatural revelation for the idea of 
God, he would seem to have what Schelling has strik- 
ingly called “an original atheism of consciousness.” This 
implication is avoided in finding the origin of the idea 
in the natural knowledge of mankind. 


16 INTRODUCTION, 


Thirdly, as these two sources are not necessarily an- 
tagonistic, they may concur, and probably have concurred 
in some degree, at least in some places, in forming the 
conception. If man enjoyed a primitive revelation, its 
light may have lingered in some regions in broken and 
faded rays, affording a starting point for the working of 
the human mind. In others the early light may have been 
lost, and men thrown upon purely natural resources. But 
whether looked upon as the remains of an original reve- 
lation or as a spontaneous natural conception, the idea 
would at first be exceedingly defective or hardly formed 
at all. No one man alone, no one generation alone, could 
have fully developed it and given it the completeness it 
now has, as apprehended in the full light of this Chris- 
tian age. Our present idea of God, the sublimest and 
most impressive the human mind has, on any explana- 
tion of its origin, is a growth, with the development of 

| long centuries in it. It has the fulness of a history in it. 

} lt has come to us rounded out and illuminated under the 
straining vision of countless generations of earnest souls 
“feeling after Him,” and struggling into clearer and bet- 
ter conception. All the time, the works of creation, the 
events of history, and the light of revelation have been 
pouring their maturing radiance upon it. All this has 
made possible the idea as it now stands out in our Chris- 
tian theism. 

3. The earliest Form of the idea. The question here 
is whether it was polytheistic or monotheistic. The Pos- 
itive Philosophy, formulated about fifty years ago, by 
Auguste Comte, and proceeding on the assumption that 
the human race necessarily develops through the three 
distinct stages or methods of thought and knowledge, the 


INTRODUCTION. 17 


Theological, the Metaphysical, and the Positive, put down 
the earliest stage as theological. Dividing this earliest 
stage itself into three periods, it declared that religion 
began in Fetishism, passed then into Polytheism, and at 
length reached Monotheism. This marking of the first 
form as Fetishistic seems to have been adopted from De 
Brosses, a writer of Voltaire’s day. It has been widely 
accepted and defended, especially by writers who hold the 
evolutionist derivative origin of man from the lower ani- 
mals. It represents the beginning of religion as consisting 
in the adoration or worship of the common objects of 
nature, animals, trees, streams, hills, or pieces of wood, as 
possessed of supernatural powers. Prof. Max Miiller’s 
examination of this hypothesis has cut it up by the roots, 
showing it to be utterly without support of facts, and in- 
trinsically a gross misconception.’ The further claim of 
the scheme, that before religion reached the conception 
of one God it was polytheistic, worshipping many local, 
national, or tutelary divinities, has little more support than 
the theory of Fetishism, and is opposed by strong, and, we 
believe, decisive evidence. Polytheism credits the differ- 
ent parts and operations of nature to different and numer- 
ous supernatural beings ; and it looks plausible when the 
unification of all natural causes into the will of one God is 
represented as marking, not the earliest, but a later and 
advanced stage of thought and development. The variety 
of the effects at first to be accounted for is supposed to 
lead, not only naturally, but necessarily, to an assumption 
of a variety of causes, and make the earliest idea of deity 
polytheistic. It is alleged that the historical evidence 


1 Origin and Growth of Religion, pp. 50-123. 


18 INTRODUCTION. 


points to this ; and that no siace of monotheism is to be 
found in the world except with a polytheism behind it. Ic 
is by no means certain, however, that the natural or neces- 
sary movement of the mind, on the first impressions from 
nature, impressions often, doubtless, very general, and from 
viewing it in confused mass, would be to an immediate 
multiplication of the difficult conception of divine exist- 
ence. The unity of nature is about as obtrusive a fact 
as is its variety. Moreover, “no human mind could con- 
ceive the idea of gods without having previously conceived 
the idea of a god.” The singular, in thought as in lan- 
guage, precedes the plural. And the results of the latest 
and best critical, philological, archzological, and historical 
research point strongly to a primitive monotheism, and to 
subsequent obscurations of the idea of one God by appli- 
cations of it to local, national and specific relations. They 
bring out the fact that while the early literature of the 
various nations of the Aryan or Indo-European family ex- 
hibits a multitudinous polytheism, it becomes simpler the 
further it is traced back. ‘The younger the polytheism 
the fewer the gods.” When the names for God, as found 
in all the later or existing branches of this race, are exam- 
ined and compared —as the Sanscrit Dyaus, the Greek 
Zeus, the Latin Ju, in Jupiter, the Gothic Tius, the Anglo- 
Saxon Z%w, the Scandinavian Zyr, the old German Ziu or 
Zio—they are found to have a common root from the old 
home where the race once dwelt together, before their dis- 
persions or migrations. So that “in the period that lay 
behind the Homeric poems and the Vedas and the earliest 
Gothic and Scandinavian legends, when Greek and Roman, 
Indian, Celt, and Teuton were still a single people, a single 
name for God was in use.” We are entitled to accept 


INTRODUCTION. 19 


with much confidence the conclusion of Prof. Max Miller, 
who says: “If an expression had been given to that prim- 
itive intuition of the deity, it would have been ‘ There isa 
God,’ but not yet ‘There is but one God.’ The latter 
form of faith, the belief in one God, is properly called 
monotheism, whereas the term henotheism* would best 
express the faith in a single God.”* This “ henotheism” 
designates the initial form of unity, before there had been 
yet joined with it a distinct negation of more than one, 
and when the same infinite, invisible power was worshipped 
under different names drawn from the chief objects that 
seemed to reveal its presence. This, and not polytheism, 
Max Miiller finds to be the earliest form in India and other 
countries. As to Egypt, where are found records among 
the most ancient of any in the world, M. Emanuel Rougé 
says: “The first characteristic of the religion is the unity 
of God, most energeticallyexpressed: God, One, Sole, and 
Only ; no others with Him. He is the only Being living 
in truth.” * P. Le Page Renouf, also an accredited Egyp- 
tologist, adds confirmatory testimony, and tells of texts in 
the early mythology of that country, “‘ wherein Ra, Osiris, 
Amon, and all other gods disappear, except as simple 
names, and the unity of God is asserted in the noblest lan- 
guage of monotheistic religion.”* As to China, where 
again we have one of our deepest openings into antiquity, 
James Legge, Professor of the Chinese language and lit- 
erature in the University of Oxford, one of the most com- 
petent witnesses, says of the several primitive words 


1From é:s, ¢vés, one, as opposed to uovos, one only. 

2 Chins fron. a German Workshop, p. 349. 

3 Quoted by P. Le Page Renouf, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of Ancient 
Egypt, p. 93. 

‘ The Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 92. 


20 INTRODUCTION. 


for God; “The two characters show us the religion of 
the ancient Chinese as a monotheism. . . . Five thousand 
years ago, the Chinese were monotheists—not heno- 
theists, but monotheists—and this monotheism was in 
danger of being corrupted.” ’ 

Similar interpretations of the indications in the earliest 
religions of the race might be quoted from other authori- 
ties. They make it fair to suppose that the monotheistic 
form was the most ancient, and that polytheism represents 
corruptions of it. Polytheistic mythologies are broken 
lights. 

4, The relation of this idea of God to the aim of Nat- 
ural Theology. It furnishes the starting point for the 
argument as to the divine existence and character. The 
aim of the discussion is to show the validity of the idea, 
or prove the real existence of the Being for whom this 
idea stands in the human mind.- It proposes to show that 
it is not an empty phantom and delusion, a false impres- 
sion and misleading dream, but represents a necessary 
and grand reality. 


1 The Religion of China (1881), pp. 11, 16. 


NATURAL THEOLOGY; 


OR, 


RATIONAL THEISM. 


PAS i: 


EVIDENCES OF THE DIV:NE EXISTENCE. 


INCE the proofs of God’s existence must be the mani- 
festations He has given of Himself, they must be as 
varied and numerous as are the phenomena of the whole 
world of mind and matter, on which He has imprinted His 
power and thought, and which are now open to our 
knowledge through perception, consciousness, and reason. 
The universe in all its matter, mind, and history, presents 
the pages of the great volume of His self-disclosure. If 
there be a God as creator and sovereign of all, then all 
must speak of Him. The theistic evidences must, there- 
fore, be literally countless, and be found in all the powers, 
movements, laws, and relations of both organic and inor- 
ganic nature, and the whole realm of human mind and 
history. No one source of evidence excludes another, no 
legitimate reasoning process shuts off the right of any other 
intrinsically sound process, or makes it useless. Each one 
of these countless evidences and processes may furnish its 


own separate and legitimate testimony, and this testimony 
2 


22 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


may be reflected in a thousand different ways to different 
minds. It is fair to assume that if there is a single 
evidence, there are many evidences, If there is one, 
there are myriad points of light, revealing the divine. In 
their individual and separate force, many of these evi- 
dences may fall short of a full proof. Some of them, 
however, under the necessities of logical thought and 
according to principics or laws of evidence held as fully 
sufficient to establish truth in any of the sciences, may, 
even in their individual and single force, carry the conclu- 
sior legitimately up to the grade of satisfactory proof, 
But the full proof is to be.found in no one argument or 
source of argument alone. The evidences are in the 
largest and truest sense cumulative. “ They concur and 
unite into a single all-comprehensive argument, which is 
just the sum of all the indications of God discoverable in 
all departments of nature, thought, and history.” It is only 
when all realms have been examined, when all special 
arguments and separate evidences are brought together 
and looked upon in their concurrent testimony, each cor- 
roborating and supporting the others and joining its 
logical demand for the same conclusion, that the theistic 
proof swells into its real and legitimate force. The full 
proof is not in one thing, or only a few things, or in one 
sort of argument alone, but in the bearing and trend, the 
implications and demands of numberless things, the con- 
silience and accumulation of manifold separate and inde- 
pendent evidences, 

Attention needs to be called to this because some the- 
istic writers have rested the entire proof on a single kind 
of evidence, disparaging or discrediting all other arguments. 
Not unfrequently, for instance, misled by the plausible 


EVIDENCES OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 23- 


teaching of an unsound philosophy, they have denied the 
validity and value of the whole physico-theological argu- 
ment, and, with Kant, found the true proof only in the 
moral evidence, or with others, only in an immediate con- 
sciousness of God. We cannot but think that this restric- 
tion of the theistic proof to but one argument or only 
several, is utterly unwarranted, and as harmful as it is 
foolish. When the truth is thus unwisely and wrongly 
made to rest on such limited and perhaps obscure ground, 
the impression is naturally created in superficial men, that 
its foundations are very meagre and insecure. Any doubt 
raised on the remaining evidence throws them into help- 
less skepticism. Well-meaning and earnest supporters of 
theistic truth have often given aid and advantage to its 
enemies, and wrought in the interest of unbelief by this 
mistaken procedure. Scarcely less unwise and less harm- 
ful has this been than the position assumed by some Chris- 
tian believers, that the existence of God, though a great 
truth, is a truth that does not admit of proof at all, but is 
to be accepted by faith alone on the information of revela- 
tion. These go so far as to assume that “God has left 
himself without witness,” except in these Scriptures, and 
appear to take no account of the teaching of these Script- 
ures themselves, that “the heavens declare the glory of 
God and the firmament shows His handiwork,” and that 
“the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the 
world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things 
which are made.” And if the universe of the things 
which are made manifests His being anywhere, it must 
naturally and justly be understood to manifest it every- 
where. A thousand points of the divine operation would 
have to be ~ubbed out before He could be hid from view,. 


‘24 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


or the forthshining of His existence and character entirely 
clouded. Much poor reasoning in the service of theism 
might be shown to be poor, without at all seriously weak- 
ening the aggregate of valid evidence, 

In general, two methods of proof have been recognized 
and used in theistic argument. They are the two generic 
methods acknowledged in logic. One is the a priori 
method, the other the a posteriori. According to its 
most ancient Aristotelian sense, a priori reasoning is that 
which proceeds from cause to effect or antecedent to con- 
sequent. In modern times its sense has been modified 
and its application extended, so as to include any abstract 
reasoning from what are known as a priori or necessary 
truths, to the conditions which such first-truths involve. 
As now employed, it is reasoning from any general prin- 
ciples, held to be self-evident, to their applications, The 
@ posteriori method, on the contrary, begins with observed 
facts and phenomena, and tracing them backward, arrives 
at a knowledge of their cause. It is from effect to cause, 
from observed facts to a general principle, from facts of 
experience to realities which must condition experience, 
But this distinction, theoretically clear, between these 
two methods, becomes practically loose and uncertain, 
Neither method remains pure, or can be pursued alone 
in actual argument, but each employs somewhat of the 
other. They run together and unite, so that it is often 
difficult to determine which predominates or is the charac- 
teristic method. 

These two methods have given us the two great and 
feading forms of theistic proof—the a priori method 
giving the ontological proof, the a posteriori, the physico- 
theological. As, however, the physico-theological proof 


EVIDENCES OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 290 


is twofold, naturally separating into the so-called cos- 
mological and the teleological, and there are evidences 
not conveniently included in this division, and as the 
a priori and @ posteriori methods, when brought into 
actual use, so unite and blend that they fail to classify the 
several arguments distinctly, we will, for better arrange- 
ment, gather the different evidences under the following 
heads: I. Presumptive Evipences; II. Tue Onrotoe- 
tcAL Evipence; III. THE Cosmonoceican EvipENce: 
IV. Tue TereotocicaL Evipence; V. THe Morar 


EVIDENCE. 
— 
Pa 


CHAPTER I. 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 


HERE are various considerations that, while not 

amounting to complete proofs, are yet so forcibly 
suggestive as at once to throw strong presumptions on 
the side of theism. They do not, indeed, demonstrate its 
truth, but, appearing as the first indications on the very 
face of the subject, as it presents itself for examination, 
they not only prepare the way for the more direct and 
positive proofs, but give us the evident and strong proba- 
bilities from the start—probabilities which ought to be 
held as of even decisive weight unless set aside by con- 
trary proofs. They show the clear trend of the whole 
question. These considerations are naturally placed as 
the initial evidences for the Divine Existence. 

1. The first of these is the universality of the idea of 
God in the human mind. Historical and ethnological 
researches, carried on in late years with great earnestness 
and care, fully justify the statement that this idea is con- 
natural to man. Its prevalence is justly held as univer- 
sal. Wherever the human mind has had its normal and 
healthy unfolding, the idea has appeared. We are safe in 
saying that there has been found no well authenticated 
case of a nation or race utterly without some conception 
of deity or conviction of the existence of a Supreme 
Being. It is true that, looking on the low state of bar- 


barous tribes with the most unfavorable preconceptions, 
26 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 27 


and perhaps unwilling to believe any knowledge of God 
possible except from revelation, missionaries and travel- 
lers have sometimes reported different peoples, in India, 
China, Australia, and Africa, as wholly without any idea 
of a Divine Being or a word to express the idea. But 
further inquiry and better knowledge of their language, 
literature and life have invariably shown such conclusions 
to have been hasty and erroneous. Even among the 
lowest tribes are found objects of worship, to which divine 
powers are supposed to belong. 

It is no exception to this universality, that in many 
places the idea is exceedingly crude, gross, and even gro- 
tesque and false. For at the best, man’s conception of 
God is imperfect, and it is confessedly reached by different 
peoples in very different degrees of clearness and correct- 
ness. In the dense fogs of barbarism, where hardly a 
trace of the divine image in man remains, the divine above 
him, if discerned at all, would necessarily appear only as 
an obscure, shifting, gloomy, and perhaps frightful, phan- 
tom. In such low ignorance no truth of any sort is seen 
except in broken forms or pale shadows. Spiritual concep- 
tions are simply as crude as the knowledge of other great 
realities. Nor is it to be counted a fair exception, when 
we are pointed to Buddhism with its hundreds of millions 
of adherents, and to the so-called atheism which, in the 
midst of our Christian civilization, parades in the assumed 
name of philosophy, science and culture. These phe- 
nomena present no real conflict with the truth here main- 
tained. For as to Buddhism, the assertion that it is 
utterly atheistic is more than doubted by eminent students 
of its literature. Buddhism undoubtedly rose on the 


1 See Maurice’s Religions of the World, pp. 93-98; Max Miiller’s Chips from 


28 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


basis of the Brahmanic philosophy, and this was funda- 
mentally monotheistic, and held to the existence of “an 
Absolute and Supreme Being as the source of all that 
exists.” Brahm was “pure intelligence,” “sole and self- 
existent,”' the creator. Buddha means the same— 
“absolute light,” “perfect wisdom.” In denying the 
existence of the “devas” or gods with which a polytheistic 
corruption had overlaid Brahmanism, Buddhism did not 
necessarily deny this supreme intelligence. The over- 
throw of polytheistic worships usually marks an advance 
of a purer and truer theism.? Max Miiller, therefore, may 
be right in saying : “They threw away the old names, but 
they did not throw away their belief in that which they 
tried to name. After destroying the altars of their old 
gods, they built out of the scattered bricks a new altar to 
the Unknown God.”* That Buddhism has its temples 
and worship and prayers does not point toward an utter 
atheism. Even should it in fact deny the real existence 
of any God other than the aggregate intelligence and 
order of the world, this very denial confesses to the pres- 
ence of the rejected conception as still revealing itself in 
the mind. As to the atheism found in Christian lands, 
the exception is only apparent. Besides being so incon- 
siderable as to owe its notoriety mainly to the shock and 
offence it gives to the ruling convictions of men, it strik- 
ingly fails to escape the necessity and grasp of the 
idea it claims to reject. Its appearance is not normal or 


a German Workshop, Vol. I, pp. 224-231; and The Origin and Growth of Relig- 
ion in India, pp. 287-298; Cockers Christianity and Greek Philosophy,-p. 90. 

1 Schaff-Herzog: Encyclopedia, Art. Brahmanism; Ram Chandra Bose’s 
Hindu Philosophy, p. 43. 

? Gillett’s God in Human Thought, pp. 34-87. 

3 Origin and Growth of Religion in India, p. 300. 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 29 


spontaneous, but the result of either speculative difficul- 
ties or perverted moral inclinations. It probably never 
amounts to a positive intellectual conviction, but is simply 
the negative state of doubt or unbelief. And evidence is 
not wanting that both the intellect and the heart recoil 
from every atheistic conclusion. For the necessities of 
thought and the demands of the profoundest forces of life 
continually throw men back on some religious positions 
even when they have supposed themselves freed from 
them. When they have pushed God out from one door, 
a god is found to have entered at another. They have 
speculated and contended concerning “the essence of the 
primal existence” and the first cause of the universe, but 
even those who have most positively rejected belief in God 
as the Personal Author of nature, have straightway pro- 
ceeded to make a god of Force, or of the Atom, or of Law, 
transferring to it both creatorship and sovereignty. Thus 
the so-called atheist of our day has usually only shifted 
the position and changed the form of the idea, and often 
falls back into a deification of the powers or attributes of 
nature and some worship of an idealized humanity or of 
the universe. So persistent is the conception of deity. 
Not only has the human mind shown no repugnance to it, 
but has developed or accepted it as natural and normal. 
It maintains itself in all ages and in all nations, presenting 
one of the most universal convictions of the race. 

Now, whatever theory we may adopt as to the origin of 
this conviction, its wonderful prevalence becomes a strong 
presumption of its truth. If held to be due to a primitive 
revelation, the existence of God who revealed Himself is 
at once acknowledged. If it be regarded as arising 
naturally and spontaneously from the mind itself, under 


30 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


impressions from nature, the universality and ruling 
strength of the belief become a clear and strong presump- 
tion of its truth. For a conviction that springs so inevit- 
ably from experience and the action of reason in the 
presence of the phenomena of the world, and is so peren- 
nial in vitality, is justly viewed as founded on reality. 
That an idea should be so thoroughly normal to the human 
mind as this has proved to be, forcing itself into recogni- 
tion everywhere and in all ages, asserting a virtual omni- 
presence in the thought and belief of the race under all 
conditions and changes, and yet be wholly false and ille- 
gitimate, a universal but necessary mistake, is against all 
natural and reasonable probability. We justly see some- 
thing more than a dream and delusion in such a universal, 
free, and unconquerable conviction. Especially so, if we 
add to this impressive prevalence the ever-felt necessity of 
it, for the welfare of life and the order of society. While 
it has appeared everywhere, it has only met a fundamental 
and plain need of the race. It has only furnished what is 
known to be required for man’s moral nature and the 
restraint of wrong. With its accompanying convictions 
of obligation and responsibility, it has come as an indispen- 
sable force for duty and good character, for the proper 
well-being and best development of humanity. All this 
looks like the signature of truth. 

2. A second evidence of this kind is the religious in- 
stinct of the race. This is properly mentioned separately 
here, because it presents another fact of man’s constitu- 
tion. In connection with the idea of God, so universally 
found, there is a further principle, everywhere showing 
itself in religious feeling and acts of worship. Appar- 
ently even deeper than that idea, are the feelings of de- 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 31 


pendence and need, the tendencies to reverence and 
homage, and the craving for some fellowship with divine 
powers above man. We may rightly call all this a relig- 
ious instinct, as it evidently comes out of the very frame- 
work and set of the mental and moral sensibilities. In 
heart, as well as in intellect, man’s nature shows an organ- 
ization for religion, an adaptation and impulse toward it 
so decided and influential as to reveal itself everywhere. 

Religious sentiments and proclivities have been found 
in all nations and tribes. Worship offered to a Supreme 
Being, or some divinity supposed to control the welfare 
and destiny of man, has been coeval and coextensive with 
the race. Every people, not purely monotheistic, is found 
to have amythology, and each mythologic system has been 
but the attempt to give formal expression to the relations 
which are felt to connect men with invisible supernatural 
powers. The literature of every land, where a literature 
has been discovered at all, reveals the coloring of the re- 
ligious sentiments ; the customs and habits of wholly illit- 
erate tribes are usually deeply and unmistakably marked 
by their action. However degraded the savagery, or blind 
and distorted the impulse, the instinct has been there. It 
changes its manifestations, but never disappears. Every- 
where there have been temples, or oracles, or offerings, or 
sacrifices, prayers, vows, or other acts of worship. 

The religious principle or sentiment in man has been as 
powerful as certain. It has woven itself in with the entire 
structure of human society and life, and has run its clear 
lines through every system of thought and philosophy, 
from the rudest to the most elaborate and refined. At no 
point has human nature been more sensitive, or more ready 
to reveal powers of intense and emphatic action. While 


32 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


usually the religious instincts and ideas have been the 
support and defence of prevalent forms of government 
and society, they have often, especially when either assailed 
or quickened by new light, swept institutions from their 
foundations and revolutionized life. . 

One of the surest forms in which this religious consti- 
tution is revealed is in the soul’s conscious cravings for a 
higher fellowship than with the finite, visible beings 
around it. The soul carries with it a constant sense of 
dependence. It feels a need of support and guidance by 
some stronger hand. It has aspirations that look to and 
crave communion with what is above it. It is restless, 
unless it can rest itself in the bosom of some all-embracing 
protection, fellowship, and care. The human heart must 
have a God, as truly as must the mind develop the idea of 
one. It has struggled to reach His favor and get hold of 
His hand, feeling after Him, if perchance it might find 
Him, through sacrifices, prayers, and vows, in protracted — 
meditations and mystic ceremonies. So, by a natural ne- 
cessity, manifold systems and forms of religion have been 
developed. The strong words of Dr. Day well sum up 
this truth : “The dependent, finite, human soul craves the 
absolute and the infinite. It craves a sympathy that out- 
reaches all that is not truly independent and unlimited, 
and will not be satisfied till it finds that which is adequate 
to meet not only the limited actualities, but the infinite 
possibilities of its need and its condition, and is high up- 
lifted above all that can condition, that can hamper or ex- 
tinguish. It craves communion with a craving which no 
finite soul can satisfy, with a higher and a higher, even 
with a highest, toward which it may ever be rising, but 
which it can never reach... . It craves, in its instinct- 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 33) 


ive aspirations for truth that pant for more than they ob- 
tain, an object that is without exhaustion, of illimitable 
vastness and incalculable richness. It craves, in the felt 
darkness about it, a light and a wisdom that is beyond all 
possibility of failing. It craves, in its sense of weakness 
which necessarily attaches to it as dependent, a help and 
supply of strength that can be relied on in any of the 
infinite possibilities of its experience.” 

If it be said that there are persons who have no such 
consciousness of religious wants, it is enough to reply 
that these cases are manifestly exceptional and abnormal, 
even as there are many persons who, through a false or 
defective development, fail to present various other un- 
doubtedly natural parts of full manhood, as, e.g., con- 
science and love of the beautiful. If it be alleged that 
antipathies to religion also appear in human nature, and 
that many men, when developed under the large culture 
of science and philosophy, hasten, as if under a strong 
aversion to it, to reject all belief in God and the super- 
natural, and exhibit feelings intensely anti-religious, the 
following considerations deserve to be kept in mind: 
First, it may be freely conceded that human nature 
exhibits some feelings and impulses at war with the 
truths and life of religion. It is not claimed that it has 
no forces that run counter to these religious instincts. It 
is even too true that there are discords in it. Secondly, 
the religious aptitudes manifestly belong to its deeper 
and more constitutive elements, and so are justly consid- 
ered as original and truly genuine. The antagonistic 
forces seem to be in no sense necessary, and therefore 
primitively and truly natural, as the religious instinct 


plainly shows itself to be. And thirdly, even when the 
3 


34 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


idea of God is theoretically discarded and religion re- 
jected, the force of the original adaptation and affinity 
for religion, refusing to be wiped utterly out, is wont to 
reassert itself in the very face of the denial. Conspicu- 
ous instances illustrate how human nature throws back 
the deniers of religion into acknowledgment of religion. 
Auguste Comte, who built his philosophic theory on 
atheism and a denial of all religious verities, in the end, 
led by his own emotional nature which his system had 
defrauded, appended his scheme deifying ideal humanity 
and establishing a system of worship and rites. Though 
he rejected religion in the beginning, the necessities of 
worship of some sort forced the manufacture of a new 
religion at the last. Materialism and materialistic philos- 
ophies are found returning upon their own paths in this 
respect. Unwilling or unable to discern any God in the 
universe or any spiritual existence in man, not believing 
in any future life or any supernatural powers, recognizing 
the existence of only force and matter evolving all physi- 
cal and mental phenomena, they yet, in the end, not only 
consent to the fact of the religious necessities of human 
nature, but proceed to tell how it may still worship when 
God is denied and both freedom and responsibility are 
theoretically destroyed. Failing by their theories to 
eradicate the religiousness that lies in the very depth of 
the soul’s constitution, they invite it to exercise the relig- 
ious sensibilities in reverence, homage, and trust in na- 
ture, in the universe, as the highest form of power. The 
idea of God is replaced by that of the Cosmos. “ We 
demand,” say Strauss, Haeckel, Oscar Schmidt, and others, 
in substance, “we demand the same piety for our Cosmos 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 35 


that the devout of old demanded for his God.”* Prof. 
Tyndall was therefore right, when, in his famous Belfast 
address, though believing that the potency of all things 
might be found in matter, he yet conceded thaf man’s 
religious instincts and necessities could not be justly 
denied or overlooked. 

What is the meaning of all this? To what do these 
instincts look? Do these deep cravings reach out forever 
only into blank vacancy and to nothingness? Are they 
presenting these prayers, this gratitude, this confidence 
where there is no Being at all to hear? Is this necessary 
worship, clustering around this necessary idea of God, 
only the acting out of a necessary dream? Is there 
really no Father in heaven at all, whose hand these needy 
children are seeking to find and believing they do find? 
These deep and abiding instincts must imply the exist- 
ence of the Divine Being, unless human nature be funda- 
mentally false. That it is thus false, it is utterly unrea- 
sonable to believe. For one of the most incontestable 
facts, established by observation and inductive science, is 
that every well defined instinct, wherever found, implies 
and points to its corresponding reality. Whatever theory 
as to the origin of things men may adopt, they recognize 
the fact that a law of adjustment and correspondency 
everywhere prevails. Nature makes no halves, leaves no 
parts standing alone, presents no monstrosities of struct- 
ure in which subjective constitutional cravings and ne- 
cessities are left without external complement or supply. 
The eye is answered by the light, the ear by the atmos- 
phere, the lungs by the air, the appetite by food; over 
against the intellect, and fitting it, are the objects of 


1 Rudolph Schmid’s Theories of Darwin, p. 191. 


36 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


knowledge; the sensibilities find their subjects ready for 
them; the will looks out on a real field of voluntary 
action.» Passing on to the instincts, the certainty of 
their indications and directive action has ever been one of 
the things for wonder and admiration. As far as scien- 
tifically examined, they are not misleading. Whether 
they teach the bee to construct its cell, or the beaver its 
house, or the bird its nest, whether they inform the 
pigeon of the time and way of its migration, or direct the 
fishes to the distant waters to deposit their eggs, they are 
all followed safely. They do not mock or point to noth- 
ing. Every positive normal instinct expresses a truth and 
looks to a reality far beyond itself, pointing out that 
reality through the darkness with almost unerring ray. 
Not more truly does the lake, reflecting stars from its 
deep bosom, certify the reality of the starry heavens 
above it, than do these universal instincts assure the 
objects which we behold mirrored in them. To look upon 
the deep re/igious human instincts alone as deceptive and 
spurious would be utterly unreasonable and unscientific. 
They therefore form a clear and valid presumption for the 
real existence of the Infinite Supreme Being whom they 
necessarily imply. “It would be irrational in the last 
degree to lay down the existence of such a need and such 
a tendency, and yet believe that the need corresponds to 
nothing, that the tendency has no goal. Religious his- 
tory, by bringing clearly into light the universality, the 
persistency, and the prodigious intensity of religion in 
human life, is, therefore, to my mind, one unbroken 
attestation of God.”? 

3. The benign influence of belief in God is a natural 


1 Reville: Bampton Lectures on The Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 6. 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 37 


sign of its truth. Though utility and truth are different 
conceptions, and utility does not make truth, yet it often 
serves to prove it and helps to find it. For, to a degree 
that has made the fact both clear and impressive, truth is 
promotive of man’s welfare and happiness, while error 
misleads and blights. Falsehood kills like frost every 
precious thing it touches. The channels of error can bear 
no refreshing streams for virtue, life, order, or happiness. 
But truth is light, sunshine, and blessed power to the 
world. It is health and vigor to the mind. It is eleva- 
tion and progress to society and every human interest. 
Now, belief in the existence and government of a Supreme 
Being has the clear testimony of utility. The ideas of 
God, responsibility, divine favor and divine displeasure, 
have unquestionably been potent for justice, veracity, 
honesty, temperance, purity, and order. They have tended 
to repress wrong. They have given nerve to moral char- 
acter. Neither individuals nor communities could afford 
to be without their help. Long before the days of Plu- 
tarch, who wrote: “I am of opinion that a city might 
sooner be built without any ground to fix it on than a 
commonwealth be constituted together without any relig- 
ion or idea of the Gods, or, being constituted, be pre- 
served,” * moralists had been feeling that neither personal 
life nor society could bear the loss of this faith. In all 
ages since, it has proved to be the only truly granite 
foundation for virtue and social order. And this strength 
of benign influence has always been in direct proportion 
to the clearness and fulness of the theistic faith. Pre- 
vailingly, indeed, the idea of the Supreme Being has been 
so overlaid by distorting polytheisms, and His relations to 


1 Plutarch’s Morailia, V, 380. 


38 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


the world and man have been so shrouded in darkness 
and error as to turn the true fruit in large measure into 
false. Often the notion of God has been so dreadfully 
misconceived as to pervert rci_gion into conflict with even 
morality, and make it a wasting power. But this is a 
result that attends the falsification of any great and 
potent truth. The blight becomes proportionate to the 
greatness of the truth perverted. But whenever the 
conception of God has been clear and well developed, 
discerning Him as the self-existent Maker and Governor 
of the universe, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness, 
and especially as the Father of all, then this faith quick- 
ens and strengthens all the best forces of human life and 
purifies and elevates all its joys. Not only does it carry 
virtue, but carries it with a richness proportioned to the 
depth and fulness of its conception of the Divine Being. 
The best and loftiest ethical systems the world has ever 
known are found under the light of the clearest and most 
positive theism. Under this light the human mind shows 
its healthiest vigor, the conscience its clearest affirmations 
and its most regal authority. Under it manhood grows to 
its noblest forms and shows its finest possibilities. Under 
it science and philosophy are achieving their grandest 
successes, culture is bearing its richest fruits, and nations 
are growing the freest and strongest. 

The relation of faith in God to the nourishment and 
vigor of our moral nature deserves to be specially empha- 
sized. There may, indeed, be some morality without re- 
ligion, as the sense of right and wrong is, to some degree 
at least, spontaneous and necessary. Atheism may even 
construct a sort of ethical system. But attempts to 
explain the origin of the worid and man on atheistic 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 39 


hypotheses have really found no just foundation for either 
freedom and responsibility or the authority of conscience. 
The effort of Herbert Spencer, after having only removed 
the idea of God into the dark realm of the “unknow- 
able,” has become conspicuous chiefly by its evident 
failure. In it the ideas of right and wrong have fallen 
away, and only those of utility and pleasure remain. 
While, on the one hand, faith in an almighty Maker and 
Ruler, holy, good, and righteous, is naturally a fountain 
of health and strength to the moral sentiment and prin- 
ciples, it is unquestionable, on the other hand, that 
atheistic opinions practically tend to relax the moral life 
of both men and communities. They cut the nerves of 
conscience. They put out the lights, or lower them to an 
ineffectual glimmer. The theoretical atheists of a com- 
munity are never its moral glory. They do not carry its 
inspiring or uplifting forces. No man ever gains virtuous 
strength and purity by loss or faith in God. Almost 
everyone, by such loss, drops down into inferior char- 
acter. It was hardly without some relation of cause and 
effect that the crimes and horrors with which the first 
French Revolution appalled mankind came out from be- 
neath the lifted banner of atheism. It is a simple fact 
that at the present time, wherever materialism or other 
speculative theories have overthrown belief in God, de- 
moralization sets in like a fast rot. Amnarchic forces are 
unchained. It is by no accident that atheism has gotten 
the further name of nihilism—the term that stands for 
the most conscienceless plans and frightful crimes that 
are now illustrating the capabilities of human depravity. 
It is not chance that finds the most dangerous of the 
“dangerous classes” to be atheists. It must be admitted, 


40 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


indeed, that simple belief in God does not stay all wrongs, 
and sometimes atrocious and horrible crimes have been 
committed in the very name of religion, as in cruel wars 
for its propagation and in frequent persecutions. It is 
proper to mention this, because some people may think of 
it not simply as an exception to the good influence of 
theistic belief, which it possibly is, but as a contradiction 
or disproof of it, which it plainly is not; for it is in no 
sort a necessary or logical result of the belief. But it is 
manifestly a violent and gross perversion of its true and 
rightful influence, and comes from the bad passions of 
men which often seize and use in unreasonable and violent 
way the holiest truths. It is grossly absurd to credit ta 
any truth whatever the consequences which flow from 
men’s violation of it. And this incidental result, as a 
perversion, has been only occasional, while the normal 
working influence has ever been the benign, quickening, 
uplifting, fructifying force for the best, strongest, most 
unselfish and happy life of which the world knows. And 
this is a strong presumption of its truth. It is hardly a 
falsehood that bears these happy fruits, a thorn that bears 
these grapes. 

4, All the facts, phenomena, and appearances of the 
world are best explained and harmonized under the belief 
of the existence of God. No principle of scientific pro- 
cedure is more fully recognized than that a theory is 
proved true by its thoroughly interpreting and accounting 
for all the phenomena concerned. When a supposition or 
doctrine works badly it is discredited as out of harmony 
with the nature of things. If it explains and solves all 
the elements involved, it gains scientific authority. Thus 
a conjecture as to the sun’s true place in the solar system 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 41 


passed from the rank of a supposition to that of science, 
in heliocentric astronomy. So, too, a hypothesis of New- 
ton’s mind has become the scientific law of gravitation. 
As it explains all the phenomena, it is accredited as true, 
despite the fact that gravitation itself is inscrutable. 
The doctrine of God affords the most direct interpreta- 
tion of all the phenomena of nature, and the only expla- 
nation yet found for many of them. Besides such facts 
as have been already mentioned, viz.: the prevalent concep- 
tion of a divine existence, the religious nature of man, 
and the beneficent influence of theistic belief, there are 
numberless things in the constitution of nature, and in 
human experience, which are most readily accounted for, as 
mankind has shown a strong tendency to account for them, 
by this doctrine. And there are not a few things that have 
hitherto baffled all other solution. The existence of matter 
and its forces—or of force and matter, should anyone 
prefer this way of statement — in marvellous adaptation to 
world-building and organization, science must, apart from 
this doctrine, simply asswme without explanation. The 
origin of life, the origin of sensation, the genesis of con- 
sciousness, self-consciousness, and moral self-determina- 
tion, are all inscrutable before every attempt of science. 
With its most searching light it has neither found nor 
shown a bridge of transition from lifelessness to life, 
from mere matter to sensation, from sensation to free will 
and the appearance of self-determining personality.’ It 
lacks reasonable answer to the question of origin on all 
these points, and unless it consents to let them remain un- 


1Dn Bois Raymond, in the front rank of German scientists, gives the out- 
come of scientific search after the origin of sensation and consciousness, by 
saying not only “ignoramus,” but “ignorabimus.’’ Lecture, Leipzig, on The 
Limits of the Knowledge of Nature. 


42 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


accounted for, must still toil on in the baffling inquiry. It 
may not be legitimate, at this stage of the discussion and 
evidence, to claim, what the facts might indeed logically 
justify, that life, consciousness, personality, and a moral 
nature in themselves prove the existence of God. But 
we may fairly maintain that the direct solution which the 
doctrine of an infinite, living, intelligent Creator furnishes 
to these otherwise insoluble problems, is an almost decisive 
presumption in its favor. Taken in connection with the 
unquestionable fact that it furnishes a direct and reason- 
able explanation of all the phenomena of the universe of 
mind and matter, it is scientifically accredited as truth. 
To use the words of an able thinker and writer: “It is 
not rash to say that it is beyond all comparison stronger 
as a hypothesis which accounts for all phenomena under 
it than any accepted theory in the science of the physical 
universe in any department — than that of heat, or light, 
of primeval atoms, or of gravity itself.”* “The simplest 
conception which explains and connects the phenomena,” 
writes Prof. Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, “is 
that of the existence of one spiritual Being, infinite in wis- 
dom, power, in all divine perfections, which exists always 
and everywhere.” 

It is no sufficient answer to this strong presumption 
for theism from its affording a clear solution of all the 
phenomena of the world, to bring forward, as is sometimes 
done, the difficulty of conceiving of a self-existent Being, 
a Being unoriginated and eternal. This is probably the 
chief difficulty sought to be escaped by atheistic theories. 
The existence of God, it is said, needs as much to be ac- 
counted for as the universe itself. But it is enough to 


1 Prof. H. N. Day: Outlines of Ontological Science, p. 257. 


PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 43 


point out that, at the worst, a self-existent God is no more 
difficult to conceive of than a self-existent universe. The 
great mystery of self-existence, or of eternally existent 
being, is not escaped by denial of a God. It must be ad- 
mitted somewhere. For, since something now exists, 
something must always have existed ; for it is impossible 
that something should arise out of nothing, or being 
should spring uncaused out of non-being. Present exist- 
ence is full proof that something has existed from eternity. 
This is conceded by all — atheists as well as theists. The 
question, therefore, resolves itself into this: Which is the 
more reasonable supposition — that an unintelligent force 
or matter has produced this universe of worlds, with 
masses, distances, and movements in exactest harmony, 
filled with beneficent adaptations, marvellous organisms, 
and millions on millions of rational and moral beings, or 
that one intelligent, self-existent, almighty Being has 
planned and created it all? Nothing in the world itself, 
with its ever changing forms and dependent existences, 
suggests the qualities of necessity and self-existence in its 
own nature. To substitute a self-existence of the uni- 
verse, with its incalculable multiplicity of parts and inter- 
dependencies, and countless actual human personalities, 
for the self-existence of God, multiplies the mystery a 
thousand-fold. The self-existence of God, therefore, offers 
less difficulty than the self-existence of the world. It isa 
reduction of the mystery to its lowest terms, to absolute 
unity and simplicity. It is therefore scientific, and chal- 
lenges acceptance by its being the most reasonable. 


CHAPTER IL 


THE ONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 


ee is an application of the a priori method of 
proof. Ontology, from %», évros, being, and ddyos, 
discourse, designates the study which investigates the 
reality, nature, and relations of being as such. It agrees 
with the term “ metaphysics,” as occupied with inquiries 
into the essence of things and the validity of our knowl- 
edge. Asa term for a mode of theistic proof, “ ontologi- 
cal” is used almost synonymously with the term “ a prv- 
ori,” and designates that kind or way of argument which 
starts, not with the facts of sense-experience or observed 
phenomena of the world, but with ideas which are held as 
intuitive and necessary in the mind’s own insight, and the 
primary and universal principles and laws of thought. 
Out of these it seeks to show the necessary existence of 
an infinite, absolute, intelligent, and eternal Being. 
While marked by the characteristic of always proceed- 
ing from the internal idea to the necessary existence of 
God, this @ priori or ontological proof is found in a great 
variety of forms. It belongs chiefly to modern times, 
and has been shaped into many different and distinct 
arguments. We do not lay great stress upon it as a sep- 
arate and independent proof, or as a form of demonstra- 
tion, viewed in its own terms alone. Though sometimes 
claimed to be the proof, complete and sufficient in itself, 


we are compelled to regard it, when taken alone in any 
44 


THE ONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 45 


and all of the forms in which it has been constructed, as 
one of the least satisfactory and serviceable of the theis- 
tic proofs. Apart from serious defects usually found in 
it, it is too metaphysical to carry strong conviction. 
Whatever force it may have to some minds, highly disci- 
plined in abstract thought, it is necessarily almost, if not 
wholly, useless with the masses of men. They do not, 
and cannot, comprehend its abstract terms, nor see or feel 
the force of the subtle logic that links, or seems to link, 
these terms to each other and to the conclusion. But 
while as a distinct and independent argument, it is of less 
value, we think, than is often claimed for it, it is not to 
be set aside or held as of no account. For in the neces- 
sary judgments and first principles of the mind, which it 
brings to view, it unquestionably furnishes some initial as 
well as completing elements needed for the @ posteriori or 
physico-theological evidences. In the intuitive percep- 
tions of the reason, whose ideas and implications it seeks 
to trace under the laws of logical thought, it supplies the 
judgments which crown and confirm all the great proofs. 
It will be enough, at this point—and probably the best 
way to explain it—to place before the reader the sub- 
stance of some of the chief forms in which it has been 
presented. 

1. The germs of it appear in Plato. His view can be 
understood only in connection with his theory of “ideas.” 
The universe, he taught, includes more than the sensible 
world. We find ideas also in it. These ideas are the 
archetypal realities, original and permanent, while all vis- 
ible and material things are only the temporary and fleet- 
ing forms in which they come into passing manifestation. 
It is only by apprehension of these “ideas” that we know 


46 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


the true realities reflected in the phenomena of the world. 
They do not originate in material things, but are before 
them, and belong to mind. Yet they are not created by 
our minds, which merely apprehend and receive them. 
They come to us. They must, therefore, belong to a 
higher Mind, and subsist in primal and permanent reality 
in the Infinite Reason whose thoughts are reflected in 
nature. The idea of a Supreme Mind is in our minds 
only because of the real existence of the Being it repre- 
sents, and becomes a direct proof of such Being.’ Plato, 
it must be remembered, did not definitely formulate an 
argument in this way, but his philosophy is found to con- 
tain the underlying principles which naturally come to- 
gether in such argument, and which started and guided 
subsequent thinkers. They appear in Augustine and 
among theologians generally since. 

2. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, 1093-1109, with 
whom the ontological argument properly begins, rested it 
upon the idea of a most perfect Being. It was, in sub- 
stance: “The human mind possesses the idea of the most 
perfect Being conceivable. But such a Being is necessa- 
rily existent; because a being whose existence is contin- 
gent, who may or may not exist, is not the most perfect 
being of which we can conceive. Being can be conceived 
to exist in reality also, and this is something greater. 
Hence, the most perfect must exist not simply in the in- 
tellect, but in the sphere of objective reality. God, 
therefore, is not simply conceived by us; He really 
exists.” ? 

1 See Fleming's Manual of Moral Science, p. 323. Cocker’s Christianity and 


Greek Philosophy, pp 369-379. 
2 Proslogium, Chaps. IJ, II. Translated in Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1851. 


THE ONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 47 


3. Descartes, who uses several a posteriori argu- 
ments, gives also an ontological proof which has been 
condensed as follows: “On analyzing the idea we have of 
God as the most real Being, containing every perfection, 
I find that existence must be comprised among these per- 
fections, otherwise the idea could be enlarged by adding 
this quality, which is absurd. In other ideas existence is 
not such a necessary ingredient, because they are not con- 
sidered as unique and absolutely perfect. But in this 
existence must be comprised. Hence the very idea of 
God, rightly understood, includes in it necessary exist- 
ence, and the existence of the Deity is proved from the 
very fact that we possess a notion of Him.” ' 

4, Bishop Butler presents the ontological proof thus: 
“We find within ourselves the idea of infinity, 7.¢., im- 
mensity and eternity, impossible, even in imagination, to 
be removed out of being. We seem to discern intui- 
tively that there must and cannot but be somewhat exter- 
nal to ourselves, answering this idea, or the archetype of 
it. And hence (for this abstract, as much as any other, 
implies a concrete) we conclude that there is, and cannot 
but be, an infinite and immense eternal Being existing, 
prior to all design contributing to His existence, and 
exclusive of it.”? 

5. The statement of the reasoning given by Cousin, 
is a fair example: “The idea of God,” says he, “is a 
primitive idea; but whence does this idea come to you? 
Is it a creation of your imagination, an illusion, a chimera ? 
You can imagine a gorgon, a centaur, to exist, and you 
can imagine them not to exist ; but is it in your power, 

* Blackwood’s Philosophical Classics, ‘* Descartes,’* by Prof. J. P. Mahaffy, 


p- 153. 
2 Analogy, Part I, Chap. VI. 


48 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


the finite and imperfect being given, to conceive or not 
to conceive the infinite and the perfect? No, the one 
being given, the other is necessary. It is not, then, a chi- 
mera ; it isa necessary product of your reason ; therefore 
it is a legitimate product. Being a legitimate product, it 
must point to a reality. Else you make your reason dis- 
honest and false... . You are a finite being, and you 
have the necessary idea of an infinite being. But how 
could a finite and imperfect being have the idea of an in- 
finite and perfect being, and have it necessarily, if this 
being did not exist? . . . The single fact of the concep- 
tion of God by reason, the idea, alone, of God, implies 
the certainty and the necessity of the existence of God.”* 

6. We omit account of the different forms given to the 
argument by Leibnitz, Dr..Samuel Clarke, Cudworth, Dr. 
Richard Fiddes, Rev. Colin Campbell, Mr. Wollaston, 
Moses Lowman, Dean Hamilton, Chevalier Ramsey, Mr. 
W. H. Gillespie, and others. Of that of Mr. Gillespie, 
entitled The Necessary Existence of God, Sir William 
Hamilton says: “I consider it among the very best speci- 
mens of speculative philosophy which this country has 
latterly exhibited.” But it is too elaborate to be condensed 
for insertion here. 

7. It only remains, now, to indicate, if possible, the 
right import and real force of the ontological proof as it 
has been thus successively developed, and stands acered- 
ited in present thought. This involves the following 
points : 

First, in most of the forms in which it usually appears, 
notably the older forms, such as Anselm’s, Descartes’, and 
others shaped in their method, it certainly failed to be a 


1 Hist. Mod. Philos. Vol. II, p. 420 (Appleton, 1852). 


THE ONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 49 


demonstration. It is seriously faulty and inconclusive. 
It confounds conceptual existence, and existence in re. 
In the curious and delusive legerdemain of thought and 
word involved in it, the reasoning makes it seem as if the 
interval between subjective idea and real being had been 
successfully crossed, and that, at least in this case, what is 
ideal in the mind must be real beyond the mind. But this 
is an illusion, under the shadow of the moving and chang- 
ing phrases. It fails to show that the simple fact of our 
conceiving of a being, whether contingent or necessary 
being, imperfect or perfect, is positive proof of the ob- 
jective existence of such being. Our conceiving of a being 
is one thing, the real existence of that being is quite an- 
other. No matter if the conception of God is unique and 
peculiar, as is claimed, and, unlike the conception of con- 
tingent beings, involves necessity of existence, it is still 
only a conception. The argument puts the simple con- 
ception of a “necessary existence” as equivalent to the 
proof of the necessity of that existence. The manipula- 
tion, however, fails to make sure the objective reality by 
a mere contingent thought within us. 

Secondly, although defective, this evidence, even in 
its Anselmic and Cartesian form, is by no means valueless. 
The ideas with whose presence in the mind it deals, and 
whose implications it seeks to solve, form the basis of 
reasoning of great theistic force. It supplies a leading 
element for a proof in calling attention to the point that 
the true idea of God is that of a Being “ necessarily exist- 
ent.” To think Him truly, at all, we must think Him as 
existing. Existence is a necessary element in the idea of 
God. In this fundamental principle there is firm ground ; 


God is not thought truly unless He is thought as a neces- 
4 


50 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


sarily existent being. But the lack here appears. For 
though he cannot be truly thought as a contingent Being, 
the question may still be raised, whether it is necessary to 
think the thought of God at all. The thought itself may 
possibly be contingent, a mere product of our free ability to 
make it or not. The argument is fatally defective unless 
it can be shown that this idea is a necessary one. 

Thirdly, this question, whether the forming of the 
idea of God is contingent or necessary, upon which every- 
thing now depends, is answered by abundant evidence 
_showing that it is necessary. It is not an arbitrary product, 
like the fictions which the imagination has power to make 
or not, at pleasure, but it is inevitable in the normal action 
of the reason, and indispensable to every rational consid- 
eration of things. Kant and others have thoroughly es- 
tablished the truth that this idea necessarily arises in the 
mind when developed and exercised in contact with the 
phenomena of the world and the experiences of life. 
From our knowledge of extended material objects, and 
of occurring events, and states of consciousness, the ideas 
of Space and Time are necessarily developed. In some- 
what similar way, in presence of the facts of the universe 
and our mental experiences, through our knowledge of 
limited, dependent, and begun existences, the ideas of 
Cause, Infinity, Independence, and Self-existence are inev- 
itably evoked. The infinite and the absolute are required 
as correlates of the finite and contingent,’ and seen to be 
as real as are the contingent realities of actual experience 
which call for them. It does not matter that these ideas are 
conditioned in the elements of experience. So are the 
necessary notions of Time, Space, and Cause. Yet these 


1 President Porter's Human Intellect, p. 659. 


THE ONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 51 


notions are so fundamental and necessary that thinking is 
impossible without them. Even the contingent, but act- 
ual, realities of the world cannot be thought at all without 
involving them. Nor does it matter that no one of these 
ideas is in itself the full concept or idea of God. For in 
their union and implications they necessarily amount to 
that idea, as well as evoke it. With these necessary 
truths of Cause, the Infinite, the Absolute, or the Inde- 
pendent, or Self-existent, the idea of God as the infinite 
and self-existent Being spontaneously and by inexorable 
logic, completes itself. It has thus the validity of a neces- 
sary thought. The theistic conclusion is, therefore, well 
assured, under the principle that what the human mind 
must necessarily think, and must think as necessarily ex- 
isting, cannot be doubted. We add the argument as con- 
densed and shaped by Dr. Dorner: 

“1. When the highest essence is thought, it is thought 
as unconditioned and independent of anything else; inde- 
pendent, also, of our subjective thought, but as uncondi- 
tioned or absolute, self-existent. Thus the only choice lies 
between leaving the idea of God unthought, or thinking it, 
when thought, absolute and self-existing. 

“2. But this double possibility does not hold, and thus 
the hypothetical alternative is rather established. It is 
not optional, but necessary to think an Absolute, which, 
in order to be thought, is to be thought as existent. It is 
necessary, that is to say, for him who wishes to think 
rationally, and whose thought és thought which would be- 
come knowledge. ... It is not open to the rational 
thinker to avow an Absolute — he must avow it.”! 


1 System of Christian Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 226 (T. & T. Clark’ 


52 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


The points in the argument may, therefore, be summed 
up thus: 

First, the rational idea of being is not a mere abstrac- 
tion, an optional product of our own faculties. We know 
real being by intuition. 

Secondly, we necessarily have an idea of real being. 

Thirdly, but contingent and dependent being does not 
fill out the idea of real being, and we are compelled to 
think of ultimate being, involving the ideas of self-exist- 
ence, independence, and eternity. Thus by a single anal- 
ysis of our necessary idea and knowledge of real being, 
we find it to include an Absolute or Self-existent Being. 
The ontological argument is simply an analysis of the first 
great fact of our consciousness —the consciousness of 
existence. If we believe in existence at all, as we must, 
we must believe in an Eternal Existence, Absolute Exist- 
ence. In so far as this Absolute Existence is necessarily 
identical with God, the evidence is conclusive. 

Fourthly, the only way of evading the force of this 
evidence as now fully constructed under the philosophy 
of necessary truths, is by undermining, if possible, the 
validity of these necessary ideas. This is attempted. 
Kant himself prepared the way for this. Though he 
showed so clearly the necessity of the notions of Time, 
Space, Cause, God, he yet questioned whether they were 
anything more than forms of thought, necessary and 
regulative indeed for us, but not certainly pointing to 
objective realities. Though universal and inevitable, they 
are viewed as purely subjective, only forms of sensible 
consciousness, with no certain validity for “things in 
themselves,” or real being. In this doubt as to the relia- 
bility of our necessary knowledge, or its validity for the 


THE ONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 53 


real world, Kant has been followed by many. It underlies 
and marks the whole philosophy of agnosticism, if indeed 
agnosticism can have a philosophy. It is not in place 
here to repeat the many all-sufficient answers to this neg- 
ative part of the Kantian doctrine. It is purely dogmatic, 
and not required by anything demonstrated in the positive 
nature of the necessary rational perceptions. It is in 
utter contradiction to the whole science of knowledge.’ 
Fifthly, it is thus apparent that whether the onto- 
logical evidence be accepted as a demonstration or not, it 
is of very great legitimate force. For the only alternative 
to admitting it is to discredit the @ prior? judgments and 
trustworthiness of reason. What more can be asked for, 
in a proof, than that it should present a logical conclusion 
which cannot be set aside without assuming that the 
human mind in its ultimate principles is self-contradictory 
and deceptive? Probably the words of Prof. Flint are not 
too strong to sum up the results from this argument: 
“This, it may be objected, is not equivalent to a proof of 
the existence of an infinite and eternal Being. It leads 
merely to the alternative, either that infinite and eternal 
Being exists, or that the consciousness and reason of man 
cannot be trusted. The absolute skeptic will rejoice to 
have this alternative offered to him; that the human mind 
is essentially untrustworthy is precisely what he maintains. 
I answer that I admit the arguments in question do not 
amount to a direct proof, but they constitute a reductio 
ad absurdum, which is just as good, and that if they do 
not exclude absolute skepticism, it is merely because 
absolute skepticism is willing to accept what is absurd. 
. . . If though I am constrained to conclude that there is 


1 See Prof. G. S. Morris’ Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 56-79. 


54 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


an infinite and eternal Being, I may reject the conclusion 
on the supposition that reason is untrustworthy, I am 
clearly bound, in self-consistency, to set aside the testi- 
mony of my senses also by the assumption that they are 
habitually delusive. When any view or theory is shown 
to involve absolute skepticism, it is sufficiently refuted; 
for absolute skepticism effaces the distinction between 
reason and unreason, and practically prefers unreason to 


reason.” ? 


It is proper, at this place, to exclude and disown some 
forms of alleged proof sometimes put forward as a priort 
or closely allied to it. Whatever evidence may lie in 
germ or by implication in the facts they present, they 
cannot be accepted when offered as complete proofs. It 
is difficult to understand how they should ever be given as 
such. Probably those who exalt them most would never 
have brought them forward had they not first allowed 
bewildering speculative difficulties to break their hold of 
the real and best theistic evidences. In their doubt of 
the true, they have clutched at the false. 

The first is the claim that the soul is immediately con- 
scious of God. German writers have been fond of this 
representation. But to assert such a direct “God-con- 
sciousness” ( Gottes-bewusstsein) is either to use the term 
“consciousness” with a strange and misleading meaning, 
or to declare as a fact what is without evidence and in- 
capable of proof. Psychology shows us, indeed, that the 
consciousness may include objective realities, in certain 
ways and to some degree. Some non-ego is a co-agent 


1 Theism, Baird Lectures, 1876, 2d Ed., pp. 287, 288. 


THE ONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE, Bie 


in giving existence to every mental state. But this is 
through the sense-perceptions. Through these we may 
say we are conscious of external objects. For in the act 
of perception our consciousness properly includes three 
objects, viz.: the mental act or state, the ego acting, and 
the outer object which determines the act. We may, ina 
sense, therefore, speak of being conscious of the material 
world about us and of our fellow-men. But this knowl- 
edge of external objects is more properly credited to sense- 
perception consciously exercised. Moreover, with respect 
to knowing God, this only perceptive faculty for external 
or non-egoistic objects falls utterly short; for no one will 
claim that God is an object of sense-perception. If, how-- 
ever, it should be said that we are directly conscious of 
the supersensible realities of time, cause, power, etc., it 
is enough to reply that we are conscious of them simply 
as time, cause, and power, and that the idea and proof 
of God are developed from these, even in the ontological 
way, only by a more or less extended logical process. We 
know of no mode in which the consciousness can directly 
inform us of more than what is wholly subjective, except 
through the action of the sense-perceptions and the pro- 
cesses of thought. Writers who resolve the theistic 
proof into an immediate consciousness of God are dealing 
in a mysticism that disregards clear thinking, and avoids. 
the very explanation needed — how a knowledge of God is. 
given to consciousness. Of course, when we once know 
God, through any mode by which our intellect may appre- 
hend His existence, we are then conscious of knowing” 
Him. This, however, is a direct consciousness only of our 
own intellectual state. 

The second is the assertion of an immediate intuition. 


56 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


of God. However evident the divine existence may be- 
come under proper showing, it is not self-evident. It is 
not a truth seen to be clear in the simple terms of its 
statement. Even the ontological argument does not claim 
that it is so. Else no argument would be used—none 
would be needed. If men stood face to face with God, 
perceiving Him directly in immediate vision, the whole 
history of this effort to establish the divine existence to 
the reason would be inexplicable. There are, indeed, 
various a priori elements involved in the apprehension of 
God, such as the intuitions of Time, Space, Causality, 
Infinity, Self-existence; but these alone, and simply as 
intuitions, are neither the concept of God nor the exist- 
ence of God. They are simply the materials out of which, 
in connection with our knowledge of the facts of external 
nature, the judgments of the reason may show the exist- 
ence of God to be necessary. A mixture of both intu- 
itional and experiential elements is involved. The very 
idea of God is built up cumulatively, and the affirmation, 
“God exists,” stands only as the authorized conclusion 
from the premises. 

A third notion to be thrown out is that man has an 
immediate feeling of God. Though the absurdity of this 
notion makes it unworthy of notice, the frequent repeti- 
tion of it makes a notice necessary. Psychology makes 
no truth plainer than that feeling or emotion, 7.¢., the 
action of the mental sensibilities, depends and waits on 
knowing, and that a man feels, or can feel, only in so far 
as he perceives or knows something that excites feeling. 
Simple feeling, without knowing, is a purely imaginary 
and really impossible experience. To put it in front as a 
direct apprehension of God only illustrates the nonsense 


THE ONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 57 


which good men sometimes substitute for legitimate evi- 
dence. 

With equal emphasis we must reject another form of 
representation, that the divine existence is wholly a 
matter of faith, faith as distinguished from knowledge 
and instead of it. Led by false metaphysics, some writers 
have conceded that God cannot be known by the finite 
mind. Some of them yet claim that we must believe in 
Him. Holding that His existence lies wholly beyond the 
reach of our knowledge, that we can know neither that 
He is nor what He is, they assert that we can and ought 
to apprehend Him by faith. Though this view is en- 
dorsed by great names, it is, so far as Natural Theology is 
concerned, utterly misleading. For unless the word is 
used in a strangely private and inapplicable sense, the 
claim entirely misconceives the true relation between 
knowledge and faith. A mere belief, without a reason or 
knowledge to justify it, is arbitrary, and rests on nothing. 
Faith must always rest on or in knowledge. It demands 
some evidence to justify it. This evidence must precede, 
to beget faith. Belief dies out if not supported and 
justified by reason. If it rests only on and in itself, if it 
has no warrant but the very act of believing, and is not 
implied by real knowledge, it is irrational and without 
authority. In the sphere of Natural Theology, therefore, 
where by definition we are not believing in the divine 
existence on the testimony of revelation, mere faith can 
furnish no just ground for the theistic conclusion." 

1 This point is of sufficient moment to call for the bottom truth in the case. 
It is sometimes said that all knowledge rests on belief. This is so only in a 
secondary sense. The real truth is only that faith attends and blends with all 


our knowledge. For when we are pointed to the fact that when even in the act 
of thinking we know our own existence, or in sense-perception know external 


58 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


Into this baseless position all agnostic theories seek to 
put the great truth of theism. In placing it wholly be- 
yond the sphere of the knowable they allow it to stand, if 
it is to stand at all, in the confidence of men only through 
an inexplicable and arbitrary act of faith as a necessity of 
the feelings. But there is no need of consenting to this 
non-rational character of the basis of theism. There is 
no wisdom in doing so, The true vindication of theism is 
not reached by such compromising consent to the demands 
of an untenable and spurious philosophy, but by showing 
that the faith in this great truth is a faith justly evoked 
by knowledge, and authorized by invincible intellectual 
data. 
objects, or in memory know past experiences, we cannot prove the truths in- 
volved, but must rest on faith in our faculties, and depend for certitude on their 
trustworthiness, it must still be clearly observed that faith arises only in our 
knowing, and attends it. Consciousness, in which we know self as existing and 
thinking, is, psychologically, a knowing faculty. When we think, we “ know” 
that we think, when we remember, we “ know ™ that we remember. The know- 
ing is the ultimate point, the last discernible in the analysis of the mind’s 
action. Faith does not dispense with knowledge, but rests on it, as it arises 
out of it. This faith in our knowledge is a very different thing from the so- 


called faith which it is proposed to substitute for knowledge, where, it is said, 
knowledge is impossible. 


a 


CHAPTER IIL 


THE COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 


4 pes special evidence designated by this term is 

drawn from a consideration of the world in the par- 
ticular aspects of contingency, finiteness, and dependence. 
Instead of dealing simply with the primary and necessary 
ideas of the mind, as the ontological method professes to 
do, this gives attention specially to the existence of the 
external world, and draws its evidence from it. In thus 
considering the world, however, it does not concern itself 
with either the special or general indications of purpose 
or design in the order and structure of nature, but deals 
with its phenomena simply as exhibiting a system of 
originated, limited, and dependent being. It is the inten- 
tion of this chapter to present in brief, first the substance 
of this argument, and then the value and amount of its 
legitimate conclusion. 

There are two fundamental and essential parts in the 
argument. The first is the @ priori principle and law of 
causation. The second is that the world, whether viewed 
in its parts or as a whole, is a finite and dependent exist- 
ence. These two things must be examined separately. 

1. In accepting and proceeding upon the principle ex- 
pressed in the law of causation: “ Every event, or contin- 
gent phenomenon, must have a cause,” it rests on a self- 
evident and necessary judgment of the human mind. It 


is one of those “first truths” which shine in their own 
59 


60 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


light, with full certainty and absolute authority. It is not 
simply evident, it is self-evident. It is intuitively seen to 
be a necessary truth, as soon as its terms are understood. 
Its contradictory is inconceivable. Efforts have indeed 
been steadily made to bring its validity into doubt — such 
as the assertion that it may be only a “form of thought,” 
subjectively unavoidable, but without authority for real 
being’; or that it results as a simple appearance from the 
“impotence of the mind” to think beyond experience *; or 
that it expresses only an empirical “order of succession,” 
a mere time-relation of habitually observed antecedence 
and sequence, no real power or efficiency being involved.* 
And this makes it proper, by a brief examination of the 
law, to assure ourselves of its validity. 

(1) The primary idea of cause arises out of our con- 
sciousness and experience. Every man directly knows 
himself as a cause —of thoughts, volitions, and actions. 
He finds causes, also, in the outer world. He is compelled, 
by both consciousness and experience, to hold them as 
real—real for his own activities, real for nature. This 
simply accounts for the origin of the idea. It begins in 
particular instances of real causation. 

(2) A cause, properly defined, is that by which any- 
thing that was not comes to be. It means the power that 
produces a change or event, The essence of the idea is 
that of activity, or an’ efficient energy in genuine relation 
to a résult.\ The contiection between cause and effect is 
nothing more or less than the connection between action 
and its result. This connection is of the nature of a ne- 
cessity; it partakes of the necessities of thought itself.” * A 


1 Kant. 2Sir W. Hamilton. ’ Hume, Thomas Brown, J. S. Mill, ete. 
4Dr. H. N. Day: Ontologica! Science, p. 186. 


THE COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 61 


cause, therefore, is not simply something that precedes an 
event, but something that, while preceding, is effective for 
it. This at once answers and excludes the notion which 
makes the law but an expression of a time-relation. 

(3) The daw of causation, formally expressed, is that 
“every event must have a cause.” It affirms this depend- 
ence of “events,” 7.é., any begun existences, or changes, 
or phenomena, upon causes, as universal. It does not say 
every “‘effect,” for then the proposition would involve 
only the self-evidence of verbal correlatives. But it is 
impossible to conceive of something arising absolutely 
or uncaused out of nothing. x nihilo nihil fit. The 
human mind is compelled to hold all “events,” or what- 
ever was not but begins to be, as effects. 

(4) This law of causation is intuitively perceived to be 
certain and universal. It bears the tests of self-evidence, 
necessity, and universality. 

(5) Its valid authority is further supported by the fact 
that its truth is necessarily and actually assumed as funda- 
mental in all the processes of knowledge, in all the activities 
of life, in all reasoning, whether inductive or deductive. It 
is assumed as a pre-condition to the very inductions which 
are sometimes claimed to give the law. 

(6) If it be said that the apparent necessary universal- 
ity of the law is due simply to our uniform experience only 
of caused events, and an incompetency to transcend expe- 
rience, and that with a different experience we might con- 
ceive of them without any cause whatever, it is enough to 
reply that this is at best only an unknown possibility. 
And this suggestion of “mental impotence” presenting 
only a negative, an inability to think the contradictory of 
the law, has no right te annul a positive affirmation of 


62 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


thought. For the causal judgment gives us the positive 
side —an affirmative judgment, that stands authorized in 
its own light, no matter what impotences of thought may 
be surmised. 

But even if the causal judgment should be conceded to 
rest on a one-sided, though uniform, experience of man- 
kind, its practical validity would be scarcely less than if 
viewed as a pure intuition. For that the experience of 
the race, in its millions on millions and through all ages, 
has found no events without causes, so as to lift thinking 
out of this impotency, ought to be sufficient to prove what 
is the actual truth of things, and to accredit the causal 
law as trustworthy. 

(7) These same principles apply to the Kantian doubt 
whether the form of thought is entitled to hold for object- 
ive reality. Kant has derived the idea of cause from sen- 
sible consciousness of events in time, and makes the law of 
causality, considered as a principle of physical science, 
purely a law of “order in time,” and not a power or effi- 
ciency. It denotes simply the fact of regular phenomenal 
sequence. His view of it is part of a system of relativity 
of knowledge or phenomenalism which so thoroughly sepa- 
rates the world, as apprehended under the modifying, color- 
ing, and creative action of our perceiving faculties, from the 
world as it is in itself, or in reality, that our knowledge be- 
comes unreliable for its interpretation. The laws of its 
real existence, it represents, are beyond our knowledge; we 
have only mentally imposed appearances, which are unable 
to carry us to the real truth of things. This error has been 
often and ably pointed out, but the elaborate refutations 
cannot be rehearsed here. Several points will suffice. 
First, that Kant has, in finding the idea of cause essen- 


THE COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 63 


tially in temporal antecedence and sequence, really given 
a spurious concept of it. And, secondly, in questioning 
its validity for real existence while asserting its intuitive 
necessity as a “form of knowledge,” he discredits the 
trustworthiness of the human faculties for the ascertain- 
ment of truth. The method of reductio ad absurdum is 
applicable here. This imputation of illusion and falseness 
to our necessary forms of thought is intellectual suicide. 
If that which is most clear, most universal, and most per- 
manent in both sensuous and rational perception, and is of 
necessity “regulative ” for every kind of knowledge, both 
common and scientific, is, after all, only a mental fiction, 
a ghostly shadow, then the whole superstructure of knowl- » 
edge floats away in air. To deny such primitive truths is 
to remove the foundations of all knowledge and fall into 
absolute skepticism. If this overthrows the proofs of the- 
ism, it at the same time overthrows the arguments against 
theism. These consequences do not, indeed, prove the va- 
lidity of the law of causation, but they show the impossi- 
bility of disproof of it. The law remains unaffected by the 
theory that questions it, because the theory annihilates 
itself in the self-destroying force and absurdity of its own 
implications. 

(8) But the method of science makes a vindication of 
the validity of the law of causation hardly needful in our 
day. This has refused to recognize, or be disturbed by, 
these discrediting suggestions. So far as metaphysics 
keeps on questioning its validity, it is out of harmony 
with the great working principle of science. The reality 
and universality of the law of causation is the grand fun- 
damental postulate of all scientific investigation and con- 
clusions. It is assumed and believed without a doubt. It 


64 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


is followed with a confidence that is impatient of any ques- 
tion as to the safety of the conclusions which it authorizes. 
The great working idea of the science of the age is that 
all nature is moving and developing under invariable 
causal law, that all phenomena are capable of explanation 
by being brought under the connections it expresses, and 
that by the guidance of this law of cause and effect it may 
trace back the line and order of the earth’s evolution, and 
write out the story of its development, from the earliest 
geologic and astronomic beginnings. Never before did 
science, with such unhesitating belief, make this self- 
evident law of causation its working principle in endeavor 
to find the beginnings and understand the realities of 
nature. It takes it as absolutely universal, necessary, and 
valid for all contingent phenomena and truth, practically 
dismissing speculative difficulties as of no account.’ 


1 How thoroughly science has based itself on the validity of the law of 
causation is best shown by a few quotations: 

Du Bois Raymond says: Natural Science—more accurately expressed, 
scientific knowledge of nature, or knowledge of the material world by the aid 
and in the sense of theoretical physical science — is a reduction of the changes 
in the material world to motions of atoms caused by central forces independent 
of time, or a resolution of the phenomena of nature into atomic mechanics. It 
is a fact of psychological experience that whenever such reduction is success- 
oe effected, our craving for causality is, for the time being, wholly satisfied. 

When the changes in the material world have been reduced to a constant 
sum of potential and kinetic energy inherent in a constant mass of matter, 
there is nothing left in these changes for explanation. 

Haeckel says: The general theory of evolution assumes that in nature 
there is a great, unital, continuous, and everlasting process of development, and 
that all natural phenomena without exception, from the motion of the celestial 
bodies and the fall of the rolling stone up to the growth of the plant and the 
consciousness of man, are subject to the same great lawof causation — that they 
are ultimately reduced to atomic mechanics.—Freie Wissenschast und Freie 
Lehre, p. 9. Though this expresses Haeckel’s materialism, it serves well to 
illustrate the place given to this law. 

Wundt, the great physiologist, says: The view which has now become 
dominant, and is ordinarily designated as the mechanical or physical view, has 
its origin in the causal conception long prevalent in the kindred departments of 
natural science, which regards nature as a single chain of causes and effects 


THE COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. - 65 


The first part of this cosmological evidence is, there- 
fore, one of the deepest and most incontestable principles 
or laws known to the human mind: “ Everything that has 
a beginning must have a cause—an adequate cause.” 
That is to say, only self-existent, eternally existent being 
can be without a cause. 

2. The other part is: The universe, whether viewed in 
its parts or as a whole, is necessarily viewed as a finite 
and dependent existence. This includes several affirma- 
tions: 

First, the real existence of the universe. It may 
seem superfluous to assert so plain a truth, but nothing is 
superfluous which helps to obviate doubts and insure cer- 
tainty in this reasoning. We obtain a clear and certain 
starting point in our immediate and necessary conscious- 
ness of self as existing. No man can doubt his own 
existence. In thinking, feeling, acting, he finds himself, in 
an immediate knowledge. In his sensible consciousness 
he also necessarily apprehends something not self. This 
not-self, or external something, also is directly and una- 
voidably known. 

On both the subjective and objective sides, therefore, 
real existence is assured, whatever account may be given 
of the reality. And when through sensible experience, 
under the guidance and completing help of the reason, we 
obtain the widest and most thorough knowledge that scien- 
tific research can give of the great universe, we know it, 
with valid certainty, as really existing. 

Secondly, this universe is finite and dependent, and 
cannot, therefore, have the ultimate reason or ground of 
wherein the ultimate laws of causal action are the laws of mechanics.—Lehr- 


buch der Physiologie des Menschen. 
5 


‘66 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


its existence in itself. Nature, not only in all its parts 
without exception, but as unified under the completest 
generalizations of science, is found to be limited, finite, 
and dependent. Everything is conditioned in and on 
something else, and this in turn on others. Everything is 
made what it is by existing in relation to other things. 
This is true of all the existences and phenomena that con- 
stitute a world, and of systems of worlds. Independent, 
non-conditioned existence is discovered nowhere. In the 
organic world the dependence and limitation are conspicu- 
ous. Every mind is limited in power. The entire assem- 
blage of existences and phenomena known or conceived 
of in space and time, is an aggregate of parts dependent 
on parts equally dependent. No addition of finite exist- 
ences can make an infinite. No accumulation of depend- 
ent existences can make the independent. The whole, 
therefore, forms a finite and dependent universe. The cause 
-of it, therefore, cannot be found in itself. If we run back 
through the connections of its existences and phenomena, 
we find only causes which are in themselves effects requir- 
ing preceding causes. An “infinite series” of dependent 
existences is a contradiction in terms and impossible in 
thought. A chain of dependent things cannot hang on 
nothing. There must be a first cause for it. Hence for 
this finite and dependent universe, as a whole, there must 
be a self-existent and independent cause. An infinite, 
unconditioned, 7.¢., independent, cause is the necessary 
correlate to a finite and conditioned universe. 

3. There are two ways in which this conclusion has 
been supposed to be brought into doubt. One is by 
denying that our necessary laws of thought — in this case 
‘the law of causation — are applicable to the real universe, 


THE COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 67 


and the other by claiming that the universe itself may be 
infinite and eternal. A brief explanation, however, will 
show how little reason there is for doubt from either of 
these points. 

(1) The only ground on which it is said that the law 
of causation canaot be taken as holding in this relation, 
is the suggestion that all our knowledge of the world is a 
factitious product of our sensible consciousness, and that 
of things as they really are, or “in themselves,” we know 
nothing. The theory teaches a “relativity” which leaves 
all knowledge a pure phenomenalism, and puts an impassa- 
ble gulf between all appearances and the possible realities. 
It “arbitrarily assumes that there is no correspondence 
between things as they really are and things as they 
appear to us.”* It questions whether our subjective law 
of thought is also a law of things. But it concedes that 
if things really are as they are apprehended, the law és 
both valid and necessarily applicable. And it must be 
‘remembered that this supposition that things in them- 
selves are different from the forms in which our minds 
must know them, is wholly gratuitous and without war- 
rant. “The same incompetency of our faculties which 
prevents us from asserting that things really are as they 
appear to us, equally forbids us to maintain that they are 
not as they appear.” We surely have no warrant to say 
that they are noi as we know them to be by all our facul- 
ties of knowing. And more than this—if any principle 
has been adequately and firmly settled in the progress of 
philosophy, it is that real “being” is the only true reason 
and explanation of “knowing.” The ratio cognoscendi 
is founded on the ratio essendi. All knowledge begins, 


1 Prof. Francis Bowen: Modern Philosophy, p. 183. 


68 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


through both sense-perception and consciousness, in a 
knowledge of deing—ourselves and realities around us. 
Even space as the condition for material bodies, comes 
out of our knowledge of body in the conerete, with three 
dimensions. So time, as the condition for events, is 
known through a,conscious succession of individual exist- 
ences, both mental and physical. All true knowledge, at 
its very roots, is ontological, or knowledge of real being. 
The theory of the pure subjectivity of Time, Space, 
Cause, etc., is utterly contradicted by the fundamental 
process of knowing. Space is known as a form of things 
before it is known as a form of thought. Time in the 
realities of actual duration is known before the generic 
concept of Time. Cause is known as a real power before 
it is generalized as a law. Our knowing is guided by 
being. The philosophy that abandons this principle can 
be no guide whatever to the truth of things.’ 

(2) The suggestion that the universe itself may be 
infinite and eternal is without supporting evidence. It is 
not only opposed to the natural appearance of things, 
but disowned by some of the most thoroughly assured 
conclusions of science. In the face of these the oft-re- 
peated supposition of “an eternal succession,” in its cus- 
tomary or accredited sense, has no place. Science admits 
not only each man to have had a beginning, but the race 
itself, animal life and organizations of all sorts, the rocks 
of the globe, the very globe itself, the whole solar system, 
and systems of systems. It postulates a time when the 
earth was not. Science, as well as theology, has turned 
its efforts to account for the “genesis” of the world. 
And the accepted, if not established, theories of modern 


1 Harris’ Philosophical Basis of Theism, Chap. VII. 


THE COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 69 


science have failed to find infinity or eternity in the phys- 
ical universe. Its fundamental working basis is the pos- 
tulate of atoms, as the ultimate particles or units by 
whose juxtaposition the chemical substances and the 
whole world of bodies, with all their forms, states, and 
changes, are composed or produced. Atoms are used as 
the necessary presuppositions to explain the genesis and 
occurrence of all the phenomena which constitute the 
universe of known existence. This is the atomo-mechan- 
ical theory, now dominating scientific work. These hypo- 
thetical atoms are variously conceived of; by some as 
ultimate units with actual extension, hard and_inelastic, 
by others as perfectly elastic. Some consider them not 
as material elements, but centres of force. Some con- 
ceive “energy” as disparate, and speak of matter and 
force, others as inherent and one with the atoms. Still 
others hold the atoms to be vortex-rings or motions in a 
homogeneous and perfectly frictionless fluid existing in 
space. The conception under which the atomic theory 
may be summarized and unified is that the atom is an 
ultimate particle or point in which a series of motions 
manifest themselves. It is of course impossible to con- 
ceive of motion without anything to move, or without 
force or energy acting in relation to the particle or point 
moving. According to the atomo-mechanical theory, 
therefore, atoms and motion lie at the origin and develop- 
ment of the physical universe. Thus matter, and all phe- 
nomenal being as known by human sense-perception, are 


> All forces are consid- 


resolved into “modes of motion.’ 
ered as one and the same force differently manifested in 
these modes of motion. The “conservation” or “per- 


sistence of energy,” and its “correlation” or transfer 


70 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


from form to form and from potential to active state and 
back again without loss, follows as a part of the mechani- 
cal explanation. The idea is given that the sum total of 
matter and energy in the universe is constant, none being 
added, none destroyed. It is always either manifested as 
force or becomes potential, though quiet, as power. 

Now it is true that this theory, viewed in the gross, has 
been used to give color to the notion that the universe 
may have been in motion from eternity and will continue 
to eternity, that it is not dependent, but infinite in time, a 
self-existent perpetual motion. But a closer examination 
shows this conclusion to be hasty and unauthorized. When 
we reach the teleological argument, with its great facts 
of order, adjustment, and specific organizations, the impo- 
tence of the theory in itself to account for the universe as 
we find it will become fully evident. It is only necessary 
here to point out that it fails to prove that the universe is 
not finite and dependent. (a) The atoms being finite par- 
ticles or centres of force, the supposition of an infinitely 
extended universe can be gotten only by assuming the 
atoms to be infinite in number. But even this is inade- 
quate; for no addition of finites can give the true infinite. 
Here a fact of limitation at once enters —limitation in 
extension. (4) A probable limitation in time also appears. 
The “conservation of energy” is found to be qualified by 
the counter truth of the “dissipation of energy.” The 
transformations have not been found absolutely complete 
or the movements always fully reversible. Under tests 
mathematically applied, in some relations mechanical 
energy has shown a tendency to become more and more 
dissipated. Matter not under the control of organic life 
exhibits a tendency toward a stable equilibrium. Atten- 


THE COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 71 
tion has often been called to this, in its relation to the 
astronomical systems. The sun-is radiating into space an 
enormous amount of energy, as light and heat. The sup- 
ply, though it may last for many millions of years, is not 
inexhaustible. Some of the heat is received by surround- 
ing planets, but much of it must pass out beyond the 
limits of the universe as known to us, radiated in every 
direction into space. Science, though it has labored at 
the problem, knows no way in which it can be restored. 
The sun is cooling, the planets are cooling, the stream of 
chief energy for the whole system is diminishing. In the 
words of Clausius, who has called special attention to this 
fact: “If transformations in one definite direction exceed 
in magnitude those in the opposite direction, the entire 
condition of the universe must always continue to change 
in that first direction, and the universe must consequently 
approach incessantly to a limiting condition.” This dis- 
sipation tends to final equilibrium, and this, under the 
mechanical theory that all things are modes of motion, 
is undistinguishable from annihilation. (¢) The only con- 
ceivable way of avoiding this conclusion is by supposing 
the number of bodies in the universe to be really infinite. 
Then the radiation would all be re-absorbed. The energy 
would all be retained within it somewhere. A re-trans- 
formation could be conceived as occurring in great cycles, 
and the universe might be eternal. But not only does 
this supposition offer a purely imaginary hypothesis, but 
it impales itself on the fact that an infinite number of 
worlds is impossible from the finite atoms with which the 
theory starts. Limitation is an essential quality of matter, 
whether as atoms or aggregations of them. No multipli- 
cation of it can yield an infinite universe. The universe is. 


G2 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


thus limited in both space and time, even when viewed in 
the light of the mechanical theory. The conclusion, there- 
fore, remains substantially unimpaired: For this finite 
and conditioned universe there must be a self-existent, 
unconditioned, eternal cause. (d@) Another fact of limita- 
tion must be included. In mind we have a succession of 
distinct personal beings, begun in time, non-material enti- 
ties, limited in number and power. These are to be added 
to the aggregate of physical nature, to make up the uni- 
verse as we know it. Neither science nor philosophy has 
as yet succeeded in identifying matter and mind, or estab- 
lishing the theory of monism or the existence of only one 
substance or kind of being. We may safely affirm that it 
cannot do it. For monism necessarily breaks at the 
start by arbitrarily denying the veracity of conscious- 
ness, which immediately and necessarily presents a knowl- 
edge of both the ego and the non-ego in irreducible 
antithesis. This ego or self is the only strictly indi- 
vidual and indivisible being that we know — lying in the 
deepest foundation of all our knowledge. The reasoning 
that attempts to count out self-conscious mind from real 
being, by refuting consciousness, refutes itself in pushing 
all knowledge from its primary and only basis. Here, 
then, in human minds, is a world of self-conscious, self- 
determining, spiritual, or at least non-material dependent 
beings, for which a cause is needed. Science confesses 
that it has no solution for living, free, self-conscious beings, 
in any known qualities or powers of matter. This fact 
adds force to the demand for the existence of an infinite, 
unconditioned First Cause. Indeed, it requires a self- 
conscious First Cause. 

4. It is to be conceded that the cosmological ea 


THE COSMOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 73 


lacks in direct force for the establishment of the person- 
ality of the self-existent First Cause. In itself, as usually 
stated, or without including the fact and presence of 
mind in the world, the argument might be held to 
prove only a self-existent something, perhaps an im- 
personal, blind force or energy, without the attributes 
which necessarily enter into the conception of God. We 
need further and different evidences, to secure us against 
the Scylla and Charybdis of materialism and pantheism. 
However, without as yet drawing upon teleology, this 
argument, when its implications are developed, goes far 
toward the proof of personality. For (1) by necessary 
conception a First Cause is one, not many; (2) the First 
Cause must be a free Cause; for that which is first is truly 
unconditioned, self-existent, and self-determining; (3) a 
Free Cause must be an intelligent Cause. We never 
reach the sphere of freedom until we emerge from the 
material into the spiritual, until we leave matter and 


reach mind, pr cae or ail pict, 4 thinkers, self-deter- 


mining being, being containing in itself the > cause of its 


own activity and changes, is necessarily conceived of as 


Mind or intelligent Will. A self-determining personal 


Spirit or Mind, and intelligent Will alone, therefore, must 
be the First or Originating Cause. Logical necessity thus | 
drives us, not only to assert the existence of an ultimate, 

independent Cause, but | to regard that Cause as an Infinite ‘1 


Personality. 


1 Liberty without intelligence is no liberty; it is caprice, or rather fate and 
chance.—Paul Janet ; Final Causes, p. 410. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 


eer the earliest days of Greek philosophy men 
have been accustomed to vindicate their belief in an 
intelligent _and wise author of the world by appealing to 
the evident marks of order, plan, and purpose in nature. 
Socrates pointed his disciples to numerous facts of clear 
adaptation and design as justifying his conclusion that 
‘‘man must be the masterpiece of some great artificer,” 
and that the stupendous universe “could not have been 
produced by chance, but by intelligence.”* The mind of 
Cicero was greatly impressed by these facts, and in his 
De Natura Deorum he employed them with much ful- 
ness and beauty of illustration.” This way of reasoning 
has always been by far the most common method of the- 
istic proof. This is not only because the materials it 
employs are open to the view of all men in even ordinary 
observation, and are strongly impressive, but because of 
the strength and certainty of the foundations on which it 
rests. The perpetual wonders of nature give it a peren- 
nial force. It is the most effective and useful form of 
proof, because it appeals to principles which a child can 
understand, and which a philosopher cannot explain 
away. It has not, indeed, been allowed to stand unchal- 
lenged. As might be expected, it has been subjected to 
the severest criticism. But though often assailed, it not 
only abides in the spontaneous reasoning of the human 


Xenophon’s Memorabilia, I, 4; IV, 3, 13. 2 Lib. IL 
74 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 75 


soul when face to face with nature, but it vindicates its 
metaphysical and logical soundness in the judgment of 
the profoundest and best balanced thought of our age. 
While materialists and atheists, apparently irritated by 
its evident force and influence, have invoked all possible 
resources of speculation against it, and even some theists, 
misled by specious but factitious difficulties or hasty tim- 
idity, have been betrayed into ill-advised and unnecessary 
concessions, the thorough discussions which have been 
ealled forth, in a measure that has given the subject a 
literature of exceeding richness, have but served to show 
its immovable foundations, and to buttress every essential 
part of the argument. When, as the outcome of a cen- 
tury of such discussion, the best assured results or con- 
clusions of modern science and philosophy are summed 
up—as they have been summed up lately with clear dis- 
crimination and judicial calmness’—the argument re- 
mains essentially unimpeached. We believe it is unim- 
peachable. 

The teleological evidence—from réios, end, and 2éyos, 
discourse or discussion— is derived from the manifold 
facts of order, purpose, design, or adaptation of means to 
ends, in nature. It reasons from the clear indications of 
plan, counsel, and thought in the economy of nature to 
the existence of a Thinker who stands to it in the relation 
of an intelligent Cause. While the cosmological argu- 
ment rests upon the contingency of the world, this em- 
phasizes the facts of order and aim, plan and adjustment, 
almost everywhere perceived. It is commonly called the 
argument from final causes or design. The term “final 

1The allusion is to Paul Janet's Final Causes, a work that must be monu- 


mental, as at once an able argument and arésumé of the issues of modern 
science and philosophy on this subject. 


%6 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


cause” was originated by the scholasties on the basis of 
Aristotle’s fourfold distinction of causes. Giving Latin 
expression to Aristotle’s phrases, they enumerated what 
we translate as the “material cause,” the material ele- 
ments; the “formal cause,” the properties which consti- 
tute the form; the “efficient cause,” the producing energy, 
and the “final cause,” the end (finis, téhos) on account of 
which, or for the sake of which (ré 05 &vexa), the action is 
done or the thing made. The teleological argument is, 
therefore, the application of the principle of “ends,” 
“final causes,” or design to the question of the being 
of God. a 

The aim of this chapter is to exhibit this form of evi- 
dence, as it stands in the light of present knowledge. 
Necessary brevity will restrict us, however, to the lead- 
ing and essential parts of the proof. We divide the 
whole discussion into three sections, presenting succes- 
sively a statement of the fundamental and general princi- 
ples of the argument, the evidence of final cause in 
nature, and the valid necessity of concluding to the exist- 
ence of an intelligent and self-determining cause that is 


God. 
SECTION I. 


EXPLANATIONS AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 


1. Definition of “final cause” or “ design.” By a final 


éause is meant an end ( finis, t¢dos) as predetermined and 
arranged for in the action of the forces ass 
It is illustrated whenever a movement or complex of 
movements is controlled or directed with a view to a 
specific and predetermined result. As the notion of final 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. yi 


cause is primarily derived from consciousness, it will be 
best understood by looking at it in examples of human 
activity and experience. Take a common instance: A 
‘man makes a table. The immediate cause of the table is 
the mechanical action of the tools or work which shapes 
and combines the parts; but the determining cause is the 
intelligent purpose of the artisan. The effect, which 
appears at the close of. the work, is, from the first, as an 
idea, the directing cause of the whole process. A table 
appears at the end only because a table is predetermined 
at the beginning. The end conceived and willed becomes 
the reason and explanation of what is done. The design 
becomes the real cause. Such an example gives us the 
fundamental conception of final cause. It shows that 
under it efficient causes become subordinate, being con- 
trolled and directed by the predetermined result. It 
involves three distinct conditions: (1) Foresight of an end; 
(2) determination to realize it; and (3) directive suprem- 
acy over all the forces by which as means the end is 
attained. As a complete definition, therefore, we may 
say that final cause is the purpose which, having con- 
ceived or idealized the end, codrdinates and controls the 
whole series of phenomena of which that end appears as 
the result. The end works as a design or purposive cause 
from the beginning. 

The distinguishing characteristic, therefore, of final 
cause is “adaptation to the future,” or “ codrdination of 
means to specific ends.” And this explains the peculiar 
meaning of the word “design” when applied to this 
relation in nature. Exception has often been taken 
to its use in this argument. We are told that it is absurd 
to speak of design in unconscious nature, since the word 


78 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


expresses a function or act of the mind. It is true that 
subjectively and in primary sense design can exist only in 
mind. And the teleological argument not only recog- 
nizes this fact, but insists on it, and rests its final conclu- 
sion on it. But objectively and in secondary sense the 
term is properly applied to the adaptation, adjustment, 
order, arrangement, or mechanism which comes as the result 
or product of the action of a purposing intelligence. The 
human purpose, for instance, which conceived and made the 
watch to measure time, is recorded in the whole structure 
of the watch. The design, which started as an ideal, 
passes over into material structure as codrdination and 
adaptation in the product. The watch is the maker’s 
thought expressed and recorded. So we justly speak of 
design in the product —the adjustment of its parts to 
its intended use. In this secondary sense the word is 
rightly applied to the phenomena of nature, considered as 
exhibiting adaptations which have been determined by 
their intended ends. In this use of it nature is viewed as 
a visual language. Its phenomena are the visual words 
in which the human intelligence reads the thought, inten- 
tion, or mind of its author. That the order, harmony, and 
adaptation which we discover in nature are actually and 
certainly due to a designing intelligence, as an engine is 
due to the human purpose which constructed it, is not, 
indeed, at this stage of the argument positively assumed. 
Such, however, is the clear and admitted appearance; and 
while the argument does not begin by at once assuming 
this conclusion, it proposes to investigate this unquestion- 
able appearance, with full confidence that in the end these 
indications of thought and adaptation that crowd upon 
our view in nature will be seen to be invincible proofs of 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 79 


the existence and work of a thinker as the author of the 
world. 

This general account of final cause fixes the meaning of 
a number of terms used in connection with it. (1) Design, 
when used objectively, stands for the end or adaptation as 
preconceived and accomplished by the designer. (2) 
Adaptation signifies the fitness of one thing to another. 
It may be the fitness of efficient causes to produce the 
intended result, of part to part in the structure of an 
organism, or of the whole organism to its purpose. (3) 
Order means regularity in coexistence or succession of 
events. It may be simply the uniformity which appears 
when the same causes, operating in the same circum- 
stances, produce the same effects. It is not necessarily 
the result of intentionality. Or it may be “the intelligent 
arrangement of means to accomplish an end, the harmo- 
nious relation established between the parts for the good 
of the whole.” In the former sense it implies only effi- 
cient causation; in the latter sense it involves final cause. 
Order alone, therefore, is not necessarily in all cases the 
proof of design. 

2. The relation of final to efficient cause. This argu- 
ment recognizes the wnion of these two kinds of causes in 
nature. It does this, it is believed, by no doubtful right. 
For in the very source of the first discovery of both forms 
of causation, in the human consciousness, they are found 
coexistent and concurrent. We know ourselves unques- 
tionably as both designing and acting, as exerting both 
final and efficient causation. 

Like the cosmological proof, this proceeds upon the 
great fundamental @ priori principle of causality — that 
every event must have a cause. And it reads this law in 


80 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


its fullest scope and universality. It accepts the reality 
and regular action of force in all its known modes and 
characteristics, whether mechanical, chemical, or vital. In 
this it proceeds on the common basis of all philosophic 
science. It looks on nature, therefore, in this respect, with 
no private eye, but in the universally accepted view of 
both common and scientific observation. It believes that 
efficient causes are found everywhere, and that all events 
are brought about by them. Its fundamental position is 
that there must be a cause for every phenomenon. And, 
true to the law in its deepest and fullest conception, it en- 
larges the comprehension of it so as to say distinctly that 
the cause must be adequate to all that appears in the 
effect. The nature of the cause must be such as to ac- 
count for the whole product. For an effect which reveals 
no adaptation, the law might be satisfied with a for- 
tuitous or blind force; but for one that exhibits a clear 
purpose or composite adjustments, it demands an intelli- 
gent cause. For a complex movement, with parts wisely 
codrdinated and held steadily and unmistakably to a useful 
end, it requires a foreseeing and designing cause. For a 
thought and plan actualized and recorded in a distinct 
structure, organism, and function, as in the eye for sight, 
or the ear for hearing, it requires a Thinker as the only 
sufficient cause. This full scope of the principle, there- 
fore, includes final cause, or design, in the aggregate causal 
action necessary for the rational explanation of the phe- 
nomena of nature. In other words, efficient and final causes 
act together. They imply each other. For it will be 
seen in the progress of this evidence that many things in 
nature are capable of explanation only by the co-action of 


\ 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 81 


intelligence or purpose with the physical forces that pro- 
duce them. 

The relation to each other, claimed for these two kinds 
of cause, 7.c., for energy and design, must be clearly 
settled at this point. For it has often been overlooked, 
or strangely misconceived. Sometimes the two principles 
have been treated as inconsistent and contradictory. They 
have been spoken of as if they excluded each other. But 
there could hardly be a more thorough misconception. 
They are not antagonistic. On the contrary, they seek and 
require each other. Final causes demand efficient causes 
for their accomplishment. Reciprocally, efficient causes 
appeal to final causes, or useful predetermined ends, for 
their rational justification. The working of forces is justi- 
fied only by the ends they serve in the universe. Human 
experience, every day, makes the harmony of these two 
kinds of causes absolutely certain. They are constantly 
found acting together, as the special purpose of the de- 
signer guides the various forces which he employs— 
which in such relation take the character of means—to 
the predetermined end. 

But the two hold distinct and different relations to the 
aggregate result, the one supplying the productive work, 
the other securing the intended order and adaptation in 
the product, the one furnishing the means, the other cour- 
dinating the means to the end. When a telescope, for 
instance, has been made, it is the result of both efficient 
and final cause. For it is a product, not only of the me- 
chanical forces that wrought it, but of the design which, 
preconceiving the end from the beginning, controlled the 
constructive work to present at last an instrument for 
scanning the starry heavens. The discovery of efficient 


82 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


causes in nature is, therefore, no argument against fina. 
causes. At this point atheistic materialists have allowed 
themselves to be deluded. For they have assumed that in 
simply pointing out how the particular effects in any natu- 
ral phenomenon result from some ascertained physical 
action, they have excluded final cause, or made it inappli- 
cable. This has been well called a “most glaring example 
of the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion, or ignoratio elen- 
es de | 


chi. 
every movement of the tools and property of the metals 


Design is not disproved in the watch by showing 


with which it has been made. Every end requires means, 
7.€., a cause fit to produce the effect. To discover this 
cause is in no way to destroy the idea of the end. It is, 
on the contrary, to exhibit the condition sine gua non for 
the production of the end. Nothing, therefore, is proved 
against final cause in nature when organic effects are traced 
to their proximate causes and determining conditions.’ 
We shall have frequent occasion to apply this truth in 
tracing this form of evidence. 

3. The alternative to final cause is chance. This fact 
must be clearly distinguished and remembered. The point 
to be settled here is not whether really, or to an omniscient 
view, there is such a thing as chance in the world, but in 
what sense the word is to be understood when used in 
speaking of actual events. To say that a thing has come 
by chance is no denial of an efficient cause. It is viewed, 
not as without cause, but without design. It is not of 
chance simply by its cause being unknown. The cause of 
many events is inscrutable, but they are not regarded as 
fortuitous. But the term is applied to what has not been 


1Dr. McCosh: Princeton Review, March, 1879. 
2See Janet's Final Causes, pp. 127-129. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 83 


planned or intended. When a die is thrown the face pre- 
sented comes as the result of sure laws of force and mo- 
tion, but because not controlled by an intention it is said 
to be by chance. Should three letters, tossed on the floor, 
fall so as to spell, say the word “cup,” the occurrence 
would be regarded as fortuitous, because unintended. 
There is in such cases a coincidence of efficient causes, 
moving independently, issuing on a result not predeter- 
mined. Two travellers journeying to different points may 
meet where their ways cross. The meeting would take 
place by chance, 7.¢., not without cause, but without de- 
sign. This kind of coincidence is chance —a coincidence 
of causes in an event not foreseen orarranged. How in- 
capable this very uncertain coincidence is to produce or 
preserve order and useful ends must not be forgotten when 
we come to scan the finely adjusted relations and wonder- 
ful organisms of nature. 

4, We view the validity of the principle of final cause 
as resting only on experience and induction. Many able 
thinkers put it higher, and regard it as ranking with @ 
priori self-evident and universal truths. President Porter, 
for example, has ably vindicated its right to be looked 
upon in this character: “We assert that the relation of 
means and ends is assumed @ priori to be true of every 
event and beingin the universe, and that the mind directs 
its inquiries by, and rests its knowledge upon, this as an 
intuitive principle.”* He shows how it is presupposed in 
the whole inductive process, and underlies all scientific 
thought and work, refusing to disappear from our concep- 
tions of even those parts of nature where it seems utterly to 
hide itself. But this question is still under discussion, and 


1 Human Intellect, p. 594. 


84 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


serious difficulties are pointed out against this view. We 
are reminded of the fact that final cause has not actually and 
always asserted itself as self-evident, necessary, and univer- 
sal, with the absolute resistlessness with which the law of 
causality does. No law of thought bars from limiting its 
application. Occurrences without design are not unthink- 
able. The idea of design is called forth, not with an 
absolute necessity, but only in the contemplation of partic- 
ular features or parts of nature. If nature presented only 
physical or chemical facts, inorganic and general masses, 
an intelligence that should contemplate them would prob- 
ably be satisfied by an explanation which would simply 
attach each phenomenon to its anterior cause, without ever 
raising the question of design. It seems to be dependent 
on the nature of the result whether a final cause is sug- 
gested to the observer or not. It is only because there 
are some phenomena which physical causes alone are 
incompetent to explain, that the addition of final cause 
becomes a necessity of thought. But this at once limits 
the necessary evolution of the idea of design, and dimin- 
ishes it from the necessity and universality of the law of 
efficient cause. In looking on the eruption of a voleano, 
or the irregular and confused outline and form of mountain 
chains and gaps, or the location of the fragments thrown 
by a dynamite discharge, we are compelled to think, if we 
think at all, that each result, however accidental it may 
seem, has had an adequate and specific efficient cause, but 
we are not equally obliged to believe that each has an 
intended end or purpose. “Take the eruption of a vol- 
cano,” says Janet, “‘each stream of lava, each exhalation, 
each noise, each flash has its own cause, and the most 
passing of these phenomena could be determined @ prioré 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 85 


by him who knew accurately all the causes and all the 
conditions which brought about the eruption; but to 
think to attribute to each of these phenomena in partic- 
ular a precise end is absolutely impossible. For what 
end is such a stone thrown to the right rather than the 
left? Why such an emanation rather than such an- 
other? These are questions which, in fact, no one asks. 
‘One might cite a thousand other examples: Why, to what 
end, do the clouds driven by the wind take such a form 
rather than such another? Why, to what end, does the 
malady called madness produce such a delusion rather 
than another? To what end has one monster two heads 
and another none at all? There are a thousand such 
cases, in which the human mind seeks causes without 
concerning itself about ends. I do not merely say that it 
ignores them, I say that it does not think of them, and is 
not forced to suppose them; while as to the causes, even 
when it is ignorant of them, it yet knows them to exist, 
and it believes in them invincibly. ... If there are 
in the universe a great number of phenomena which do 
not suggest in any manner the idea of an end, to compen- 
sate for this there are others which, rightly or wrongly, 
call forth this idea imperiously and infallibly. Such are 
the organs of living beings, and above all, of the superior 
animals. Why this difference? What more is there in 
this case than in the previous one? If the principle of 
finality were universal and necessary, like the principle 
of causality, would we not apply it everywhere like the 
latter, and with the same certainty? There are none of 
these differences as regards efficient causes. In all cases 
we affirm that they exist, and we affirm it equally. There 
are no phenomena that are more evidently effects than 


86 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


others. We know the cause of them, or do not know it; 
but known or unknown, it is; and it is not more probable 
in this case than in that. On the other hand, even those 
who affirm that there is final cause everywhere, acknow]l- 
edge that it is more manifested in the animal and vegeta- 
ble kingdoms than in the mineral; and if one were reduced 
to the latter kingdom, and man were to forget himself, the 
idea of final cause would not, perhaps, present itself to 
the mind.”’’ 

This account of the principle is not to be taken as any 
denial of the universal prevalence of final causation in 
nature. In the end we may believe in such a prevalence, 
When once, through analogy and induction, the principle 
has been recognized, and nature is read with the open eye 
of theistic vision, the conviction will probably come that 
the teleological law holds in all things throughout the uni- 
verse. The completed induction may give to it such a 
certainty and necessity as to become regulative for the 
rational interpretation of all nature. We believe that 
nothing short of this will furnish a rational view or con- 
ception of the world, or justify the effort of science to set 
forth an orderly classification of its phenomena. This 
argument, however, does not assume final cause to be @ 
priori or self-evident. It looks upon it simply as a rea- 
soned truth, revealed in the facts of nature and thoroughly 
established by legitimate evidences. 

5. The reasoning employed in this proof is analogical 
and inductive. It proceeds upon the indisputable fact of 
likeness between many of the products of nature and the 
products of human design. It is by no means claimed 
that they resemble each other in all respects. In many 


1 Final Causes, pp. 6-8. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 87 


features they greatly differ. They are unlike as to the 
modes of production. Between the mechanism which 
produces a watch and the growth which produces a tree 
there is a complete difference. The difference is some- 
times thought to destroy the ground of analogical reason- 
ing in the case. The world, it has often been said, cannot 
be likened to Paley’s watch or any other sort of mechan- 
ism. Between things natural and things which men make 
there are many most striking contrasts. But still, though 
the structures of nature are so different from those of 
human art that they are at once easily distinguish- 
able, and though the forces and processes by which they 
are formed bear no resemblance to each other, they have 
nevertheless something in common, and that common 
something is the evident adaptation to useful ends. This 
adaptation, too, is simply a fact in both cases. This is a 
point that must be clearly understood. We are to distin- 
guish between the subjective design and the objective 
adaptation. The one is a mental act and force, the other 
a relation of parts in a product. Adaptation is not some 
ideal figment, formed somehow in our minds, and then 
arbitrarily transferred and imposed on nature, but is a per- 
ceived relation in and among objective and real phenomena. 
The adaptations in a chronometer are simply facts. The 
adaptations, likewise, in natural organisms, the suitable- 
ness of one part to the rest and of all to the uses of sen- 
tient existence, to whatever cause they may be referred, 
or however accounted for, are simply facts. The two 
classes of productions, by human art and by nature’s 
forces, are alike in this great significant feature — in the 
fact of adaptation. In the case of structures by man, we 
know the adaptations to be the result of a cause working 


88 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


from the beginning to the predetermined end, and we 
know that cause to be an intelligent design. The similar 
effect, namely, adaptation, is by inductive analogy referred 
to a similar cause. Mind, intelligent will, is the only 
known cause of such effects, and we are thus necessitated 
to account for them, if we attempt to account for them at 
all, by such a reference. It is indeed objected that while 
this process is valid in reference to the products of man’s 
industry, because we here actually perceive the working 
agent, it is not valid in the attempt to find a designer for 
nature, because the being of God, as the assumed agent, 
is unknown. But the demand for a suitable cause is 
direct and immediate from the observed fact of adaptation, 
and is not at all dependent on our previous knowledge of 
the agent or his manner of working. The analogical pro- 
cess moves back along the line of the causal law, and finds 
a predetermining agency in an intelligent purpose. The 
movement takes us to an agent. When once we have 
found the principle of final cause in our own psychical 
experience, and have become acquainted with the peculiar 
products of mental causation, we are furnished with the 
data for the analogical conclusion. The mind necessarily 
recognizes the work of mind wherever it stands in its 
presence. A thinking agent recognizes the products of 
thought. The finding of adaptation in mechanism, and 
belief in an intelligent cause for it, do not depend ona 
previous knowledge of the particular and competent 
ageut. 

The action of final cause, moreover, is a very large 
phenomenon on the earth. It is not simply an occasional 
or a feeble agency. In human industry design has deter- 
mined, and still unceasingly determines, the appearance 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 89 


of the world and the course of events. It changes the 
face of the continents and islands of the sea, builds cities, 
binds nations together by railroads and telegraphs, and 
produces most of the wonderful effects which furnish the 
immediate conditions of human comfort and enjoyment. 
Most of the things in which life finds elevation and glory 
are unquestionably from the action of final cause in human 
activity. It must be noted distinctly that by using the 
established physical forces and laws, it brings about ten 
thousands of results which would never occur without it. 
Through science and invention it is making the world of 
to-day wear a different face from that of the old cen- 
turies. Through domestication of plants and animals, 
and enforced conditions of life, it regulates even the 
development of natural phenomena. The fact of design, 
furnishing analogy for the explanation of adaptations, is 
one of the most thoroughly known and impressive facts 
in the world. Not only is it known to be a real and 
actual cause of them, but it is the only known cause of 
them. To suppose them to be possibly due to something 
else, would be to abandon legitimate reasoning and resort 
to gratuitous conjecture. It would be to refuse a known 
and competent cause in favor of an unknown possibility; 
to reject that for which we have a reason in favor of that 
for which we have none. 

There is another consideration which thoroughly justi- 
fies the principle of analogy here. This is that the 
human activities and industries which exhibit final causes 
in actual operation, themselves belong to the aggregate 
system of nature. The objection that discredits the 
validity of the reasoning has proceeded mainly on the 
idea, surreptitiously fetched in, that in finding final cause 


90 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


in the adaptations of nature, we unwarrantably take a 
fact and explanation from one realm and apply it to quite 
another and opposite realm. An impassable gulf is in- 
serted between man and nature. We are told that we 
have no right, simply from knowing a cause of adapta- 
tions in intelligent human mechanics, to attribute the 
like cause to nature which shows no intelligence. But 
the objection turns to nothing, when the truth is remem- 
bered that man is not outside of nature or in antithesis 
to it. Whatever view may be taken of him, he is part of 
nature, the summit and crown of it, to be sure, but still 
embraced and held in it. He is born, and grows, and is 
dependent on the same chemical and physical laws as the 
animal world about him. He is subject to the common 
laws of organic life. Even his mental life is at present 
conditioned in the healthy action of a complex of natural 
forces. Thus, however clearly his possession of reason 
may suggest to faith a connection with a higher sphere, 
the roots of his being undoubtedly connect him with the 
great aggregate of nature. And it is to be specially 

noted that whatever view some thinkers may take of man 
"in consideration of his power of free self-determination 
and spiritual destiny, those who deny final cause and the 
existence of God are emphatic in the complete identifica- 
tion of man with nature. To them he is simply a natural 
phenomenon, only and utterly a product and part of 
nature. Should others make a distinction between nat- 
ural and human action, they allow none. Final cause in 
human art, therefore, furnishes not only an analogon for 
final cause in nature, but an instance of it. It presents a 
unique but actual example, of wide extent, in the midst of 
nature. When, therefore, we attribute it to nature, it is 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 91 


no gratuitous transfer of what belongs to one realm to 
another and distinct realm, but the simple extension of a 
principle which nature owns, and adopts in its highest 
range. Human industry is confessedly the action of final 
cause, and human industry belongs to nature. It is gro- 
tesquely absurd when men who see in our race nothing 
but an evolution of physical forces, but who effect adap- 
tations by design every day, yet deny that nature exhib- 
its final cause or predetermined products. 

But without further vindicating here the validity of 
the conclusion reached by the application of analogy and 
induction in this argument, and thus anticipating what 
belongs to a later stage of this discussion, we simply 
call attention to the fact that the argument proceeds 
upon these principles, and that they are the recognized 
and accepted principles of science and practical life. If 
analogy and induction are valid for truth in other rela- 
tions, it would be difficult to show why it should not be 
in this. In no other relation in all the wide range of 
human search after truth, are the facts underlying and 
impelling the inductive process and warranting its suffi- 
ciency so numerous and absolutely certain. If there is 
anything of which men are absolutely sure, it is the 
reality of this principle, as the explanation of known and 
intentionally produced adaptations. As the products of 
intelligent will-force, using efficient causes or natural 
laws for specific and useful ends, these adaptations mark 
the whole world of human industry and art. The pecul- 
lar products of final cause, the codrdinations that are 
due to design and mark it to intelligent observation, are 
the most familiar and unmistakable things of daily life. 
By an unquestionable experience design has been given 


92 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


us as the explanation of facts of adaptation, and the 
only explanation. We thus know this as a true, proper, 
competent cause of them, and we know of no other 
cause. And this proof proposes to show that nature 
abounds with adaptations, clear codrdinations of physical 
forces and processes to predetermined ends, which at 
once and directly reveal the working of an ordaining 
intelligence. They are recognized as the unmistakable 
work of a Thinker. While mind 7s known as the actual 
cause of adaptations to useful ends, in the uniform expe- 
rience of the race, no other cause whatever is known. 
We have no knowledge of a contrary analogy, no exam- 
ple for a different induction. The evidence all points one 
way. It would be strange logic to refuse the conclusion 
to which all the evidence points for one wholly without 
evidence. Because analogy may fall short of a full 
demonstration, shall we therefore prefer a contrary con- 
clusion not only utterly destitute of proof, but at war 
with all the real evidence in the case? 

6. This proof considers the phenomena of the world as 
effects, .€., as “events,” not as something self-existent and 
eternal, but as things which had a beginning, which once 
were not, but have come to be. We are fully aware that 
it has been objected here that this is one of the chief 
points to be proved in order to justify the theistic con- 
clusion. In former days, at least, the world itself was by 
some considered as self-existent and eternal. But while 
we freely consent that this point shall be held open to 
revision, if truth require, and that it shall have to be sus- 
tained by just evidence, we are fully warranted in at once 
conducting the argument on this idea, for the following 
reasons: 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 93 


First, the entire evidence smological argu- 
ment presents the world as an effect or a begun existence. 
The most careful and scrutinizing search can find nothing 
in the material universe either infinite or unconditioned. 
Limited and dependent forces and contingent forms alone 
are found in its phenomena, whether viewed in the aggre- 
gate or in its parts. The teleological argument starts 
with all the evidence gained in the cosmological conclu- 
sion. 


Secondly, the special _and _particular_phenomena_con- 


ceded to be “‘events” or “effects” in the fullest sense of 
the term. If there was ever a time when this could have 
been plausibly questioned or denied, science has now put 
that time forever in the past. It leaves*no place for the 
old notion that the earth is eternal. Science finds none of 
its phenomena without a beginning, none that are not ef- 
fects. It rigorously demands that, without exception, they 
all be considered as held under the law of causality. It 
opens the geologic records, and points to a time when the 
plants and animals that now are were not; when the races 
they belong to were not. It goes back and tells us, from 
evidences that allow no doubt, how and where the hills and 
mountains that seem most “everlasting” were made; how 
the rocks were built from the detritus of earlier rocks and 
by myriad animalcules working in the seas, and how the 
coal beds were formed of the forests. It is disposed even 
to go back further still—though probably only in a bold 
and brilliant hypothesis—and tell us how the earth, sun, 
moon, and planets were all formed out of nebular fire-mist. 
Seeing the overwhelming evidence that all earth-phenom- 


94 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


ena are not eternal, but caused or originated, science is 
thus, in all its working theories, now fully consenting at 
least to this point of theistic doctrine, that there was a 
time when the worlds were not. It joins in saying that 
they had a beginning and are effects. And these effects 
or “events” form the whole realm which the teleological 
argument investigates, and in which the evidence of final 
cause is traced. Even the notion of an “eternal series” 
fails to introduce any difficulty in the conditions of this 
proof. For, by very conception of an “eternal series,” 
every event of the series becomes an effect. And if this 
effect exhibit final cause, the full basis for the teleological 
conclusion is there. 

Thirdly, we may rightly start with this assumption, be- 
cause in the evidence which it gives that the phenomena are 
really products of thought, this argument itself furnishes 
the invincible proof on this point. It proposes to show 
that they are predetermined products or existences, the 


reason of whose codrdinations and adaptations is not in the 
things themselves, and, therefore, originated phenomena, 
with an intelligent, preordaining mind behind them. The 
teleological evidence which makes it impossible to look 
on the world and its events as merely “the eternal stream 
of a planless coming and going,” and compels us to regard 
its specific and wonderful adaptations as due to intelligent 
- design, becomes itself the direct and final proof on this 
point. What is at the beginning taken as true, on the 
authority of observation and science, is in the end con- 
firmed by the unique facts which the argument itself brings 

into convincing view. 
7%. Under the authority and guidance of these princi- 
ples two distinct points are to be proved. First, the real- 
Batted 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 95 


_ity of final causes, i.e., causes acting for ends, in nature ; 


and secondly, that these are to be referred to an ordaining 


intelligence. One gives us the great fact, the other the 
interpretation of it. Superficial thought often fails to 
keep these two things distinct. This is, indeed, not sur- 





prising, since they are really very closely allied. But they 
furnish basis for different classes of objections, or at least 
for objections in different senses. For example, Hume’s 
objection, repeated by J. S. Mill and others, that we have 
no right to assume that nature acts in the production of 
her works as man does in the production of his, may mean 
either that there is no final cause at all in nature where 
there seems to be, but only consequences, or results, or 
that though nature presents real final cause, we are not 
obliged to credit it, as we do in human industry, to intelli- 
gence or self-conscious will. In the one sense the objec- 
tion doubts, or denies, the reality of nature’s working for 
the sake of ends; in the other it implies that, for aught 
we know, there may be some other cause than mind for 
codrdinated adaptations. It may be that in our common 
way of thinking specifically ordered adaptations and an 
intelligent designer stand as necessary correlates; but 
since there are those who assert that it is an unwarranted 
assumption when we make “mind,” which is, indeed, a 
cause of adaptations, to be the only possible cause for 
them, it becomes necessary to keep in view this distinction 
between the fact of final cause and the interpretation of 
the fact. Usually, indeed, atheists deny both the fact 
and the interpretation, both finality * and intentionality. 


1 The word “ finality,’ used by Paul Janet to express the fact of predeter- 
mined ends in nature, is a convenient correlative to the intelligent purpose, 
called “intentionality,” employed to express the nature of its cause. 


96 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


For the sake of reaching an unassailable conclusion, both 
points must be sustained by adequate proof. They form 
the several premises of the evidence, as is shown whenever 
the teleological argument is reduced to syllogistic form, as, 
for instance: 

** Whatever exhibits marks of design had an intelligent author: 

The world exhibits marks of design; 

Therefore the world had an intelligent author.” 

We will, therefore, in the following sections present, 
first, some evidence that sustains the minor premise, or 
that nature exhibits causes acting for ends, and then ex- 
amine the legitimacy of the interpretation which refers 
them to an intelligent author. 


SECTION IL. 
Tue Rearity or Finat Causes 1x NATURE. 


The first and leading point in this whole argument is 
in the question: Does nature exhibit causes acting for 
ends? We adopt the term “ finality ” to designate the 
precise thing inquired after in this question. The point, 
let it be kept in mind, is not whether we can account 
for nature’s pursuit of ends except by referring it to 
mind or intelligent purpose, but whether there are ends 
or objects really predetermined, sought and accomplished 
by nature — whether there is anywhere anything for the 
sake of which (the 7d 05 &vexa of Aristotle) nature’s proc- 
esses work or its structures are produced. It may, in- 
deed, be difficult to repress or keep back the idea of inten- 
tionality, or intelligent authorship, where we find finality 
or causes really regulated by ends; but in this section, and 
for the present, this is held in abeyance, and the inquiry 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 97 


is simply concerning finality. Whether or not this finality 
demands the recognition of mind as its cause is a question 
for further investigation. 

The present inquiry, it must be further observed and 
remembered, is not at all a matter of speculation or inter- 
pretation, but simply and purely a question of fact. And 
the affirmation we make is that finality, or the action of 
the constitution ciara processes ¢ of nature. For the sake of 
‘showing and illustrating this, we will gather a sufficient 
number of examples from the various departments in 
which nature offers itself to our inspection, in the follow- 
ing order: 1, in Organi sms; 2, in Instinct; 3, in the Gen- 
eral Order of the > Physical World; 4, in the Chemical 
Elements, and 5 5, in Mind. 


ORGANISMS. 


1. Begin with the classic example of the eye. The 
question is: Does nature act for an end in the structure of 
this organ? Is it produced by chance or under final 
cause? Examine it. It is found to have all the parts 
and adaptations of a complete optical instrument, adjusted 
according to the laws of light for needed, comfortable and 
pleasurable vision. We have, first, a firm case, formed of 
several membranes, suited to hold all the parts, upon 
which are fastened the cords and pulleys of its skilful 
mounting and motion. The outer of these membranes, 
called the sclerotic, is opaque on the back and sides of 
the eye, but in front suddenly becomes transparent as 
erystal, and so forms the cornea — or, rather, it terminates 
in a bevelled edge which receives the cornea as a watch- 
glass is received by the grooves in its case. Within this 


98 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


is a second coating, which becomes thoroughly opaque in 
the front, forming the iris, through which no ray of light 
can pass except by the opening in the centre, known as 
the pupil. This iris is a self-adjusting network, which no 
skill of man can equal, enlarging or diminishing the pupil 
according to the intensity of the light, and always in a 
perfect circle. Within the case are the different humors, 
the aqueous, the crystalline, and the vitreous, forming to- 
gether a compound lens, of finest refracting power. Piere- 
ing the double coating on the rear, a fine thread comes 
forth from the brain, and spreads itself out on the ‘deep 
interior of the eye as a delicate coating, or screen, known 
as the retina, or optic nerve expansion, upon which the 
light, reflected from external objects and refracted through 
the lenses, falls, producing there an image of those ob- 
jects, as in a camera obscura. The formation of this 
image is essential to sight, and the result is actually ac- 
complished through this lengthened, complex and elaborate 
combination of parts, in which is brought together a great 
variety of materials, of the exact qualities and quantity 
needed, and in position clearly adapted to this single end. 
But more than this must be considered. This instrument, 
so exactly optical on mechanical principles, is put into a 
place clearly adapted for it. A cavity is provided in the 
bone, with grooves and perforations for the necessary ma- 
chinery of motion. The eye is packed in soft elastic cush- 
ions, and fastened by strings and pulleys, to give it ease, 
variety, and rapidity of motion. A delicate fringe of 
lashes, that never needs clipping, helps to guard it, while 
not obstructing the light. Above this a projecting brow 
is formed, furnishing additional defence. And what is 
most suggestive of prearranged plan—near the eye is a 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 99 


laboratory, called a gland, put up and kept running, to 
secrete a suitable fluid to keep the whole organ moist and 
comfortable, with a pipe laid to conduct the fluid to its 
place. 

Now it is a simple matter of fact, and not in any just 
sense a speculative opinion, that the eye thus described is 
a constructed instrument, whose parts are adapted to a 
fixed, definite, and consistently pursued end. It is a com- 
plex organ, in which nature is plainly and actually accom- 
plishing a precise and determined object. We are not, in 
this statement, interpreting any merely subjective notion 
of our own into the eye, but simply stating what it 7s as a 
structured part of nature. In it organization of various 
materials and parts into an instrument of vision, is simply 
afact. It is a complex of adaptations to an actual end— 
an end to which all the efficient causation producing the 
eye is unquestionably correlated. In other words, it is 
really an “organ.” If it is not this it is no eye at all, the 
very concept of the eye having dropped away. We press 
the emphasis on this point, that adaptation of the struct- 
ure to vision is purely a matter of fact, as truly so as is 
the existence of the parts which compose it. Whatever 
explanation may be given of it, nature is here actually 
pursuing an end for the service of the entire animal and 
human worlds. 

Our impression of this truth is yet further deepened 
when we consider more specifically such things as these: 
(1) That vision is a necessity for the whole purpose and 
work of man on earth, something so important that the 
failure of it would bar off the race from all the high life 
for which it finds its lofty faculties to be suited. (2) That 
this need, being developed only as a result of the com- 


100 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


pleted organization of man’s faculties and of his position, 
could be efficient for the origination of the eye only as a 
final cause. (3) That in the eye independent things the 
most remote from each other, as light from the sun and the 
refractive power of certain humors, are made to coneur in 
a definite and exact result suited to the perceiving mind. 
(4) That not only is every part of the structure complete in 
itself, but it is accurately and fixedly adapted not only to 
every other, but to the final result, the absence of any one 
part being destructive of the use of the whole. (5) That 
there is nothing in the nature of the elements themselves 
found to compose the matter of the eye, considered as chem- 
ical constituents, to necessitate or account for their running 
into this particular structure just in the place occupied by 
this organ. And (6) that this instrument in every in- 
stance of the millions and millions of human beings and 
animals, is prepared and made ready for use in advance 
and by anticipation, an instrument constructed and formed 
in the dark for the time of light. When all these points 
are considered in connection with the extremely artificial 
forms and features of the organ, already mentioned, such 
as the opaque sclerotic changed to transparency in front, 
the iris with its pupil for admission of the light, the 
genuine lenses, the outspread optic nerve, the adjusted 
pulleys and cords for motion, and the factory and pipes 
for the moistening fluid, all put and kept together for the 
mind’s use, it is impossible rationally to doubt that we 
have here a case where nature’s work is pursuing and 
actually accomplishing a distinct and definite end. We 
have a very fact of finality—the function of vision pro- 
vided for by a special structure or instrument arranged 
to afford it. If this is not to be accepted as a very fact of 


—— 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 101 


nature, we know not on what basis science is justified in 
claiming any of its data as facts. 

2. The ear, as the organ of hearing, deserves to be 
mentioned next after the eye. It is as well adapted to its 
purpose as is the organ of sight. Though not quite so 
complex and wonderful as the eye, it consists as truly of 
distinct structures and adjusted parts, all brought into 
peculiar and specific relations, and accurately arranged 
for giving to the soul communication with the outer 
world. The external part is an admirable formation for 
collecting the vibrations of the air and conducting them 
inward. If this is not its object, no explanation why it 
exists can be given. The continuous channel, the bony 
rim with tympanum stretched over it, the several addi- 
tional bones leading further inward, arranged like a well 
contrived telephonic line, the eustachian tube supplying 
air for the inner cavities, all together exhibit nature as 
working out a specific and well defined purpose. The 
whole organ is as complete an adaptation of a complex of 
peculiarly formed parts to the laws of sound or the vibra- 
tory action of the air, and turning it to the service of the 
mind, as is the eye to the laws of light. Can anyone 
account for the formation of the ear, an organ so differ- 
entiated and fixed into permanency of specific structure, 
except as called for under a law of ends in nature’s 
system? Does it not present a real fact of structural 
adaptation to a necessary use? 

3. In the other senses, taste, smell, and touch, we find 
similar provision for necessities in the animal economy. 
Each one presents a specific organization adjusted to a 
particular function serviceable to the animal life. In the 
case of taste and smell there is a localization of unique 


102 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


structure in which special provision occurs, furnishing a 
means of information to the mind concerning the outer 
world. There is no reason whatever to think that it is an 
essential property of matter to organize itself into papille 
for taste or smell, since each occurs only on a particular 
spot in the animal surface. Nor are these organs, or the 
sense-perceptions through them, so essential to animal life 
that they may be looked upon as “necessary conditions of 
existence.” The sense of touch, indeed, is spread over 
almost the entire surface; but on that surface it neverthe- 
less appears as a particular nerve structure, a specific pro- 
vision, with the finest actual adaptation to the wants and 
welfare of the whole man. It forms a marvellous adjust- 
ment to all the great purposes or activities to which we 
find our aggregate nature calling us in life. If we leave 
the idea of ends out of view, there is no conceivable 
reason why matter should evolve, just where it would be 
useful, a structure so unique and marvellously suited to 
serve every part of the complex bodily organism, 

4. The bony framework of man and of all animals 
presents a wonderfully impressive instance of nature’s 
acting for ends. This is true in every aspect in which it 
may be viewed. Looked at simply as a particular sud- 
stance, concreted in the process of growth, it is remark- 
ably fitted for building the skeleton or frame for the rest of 
the body. Considered as so framed together, the purposive 
features become strikingly apparent. Each bone has a 
special structure, as to length, thickness, figure, curve, or 
notch, after the manner of a specifically prepared piece. 
Each one bears this feature as plainly as do the plates 
and bars and bolts and screws which the machinist forms 
to make an engine or a printing press. Most artificially 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 103: 


formed joints are found connecting these various pieces — 
about two hundred and eighteen in the human frame— 
providing for the kind and degree of motion required 
everywhere by the principles of both utility and beauty. 
In these joints, strong ligaments, skilfully inserted, tie the 
bones securely together. A good example of this is seen 
in the firm yet flexible cord in the hip joint, inserted at 
one end in the head of the ball and at the other in the cup 
of the socket, and holding them securely against liability 
of dislocation. A more remarkable illustration is found 
in the knee joint, where two ligaments are used and addi- 
tional security is gained by their being made to cross each 
other. This ligamental binding is no new method, or one 
developed only in the human frame. Fossil evidence from 
the old geological formations exhibits instances, even in 
marine life, of the ball-and-socket joint of exquisite work- 
manship, with the ligament to unite the parts. Asa special 
method of attaining this end, it seems to have originated 
as soon as the general plan of animal organization called 
for it, and it has continued through untold ages as the 
permanent form of contrivance for security in the joint- 
ing. Its origin cannot possibly be attributed to the me- 
chanical action of the parts, as that action manifestly 
tends to destroy rather than create such ligaments. It 
can be taken as a “survival of the fittest” only when 
credited to the action of a creative and controlling Will. 

No artificer could plan and put together on mathemati- 
cal principles a more distinctly adapted framework than 
this bony structure as a whole. In whatever modifica- 
tions it is found in the various animal races, an orderly 
method holds throughout, a method which not only pro- 
vides a solid firm support for the various parts of the 


104 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


body, but protecting covering for the most important 
organs, such as the brain, the heart, the lungs, and the 
digestive apparatus, and furnishes attachment for hun- 
dreds of cords that are to give it motion, while it presents 
perforations here and there for the passage of nerves, 
veins, and arteries. The question is: Does this frame- 
work present a real adaptation of part to part and of the 
whole to a specific end in the animal economy? Is it 
only a result of coincidence in the blind movement of 
efficient forces not at all designed to produce this result, 
or are the parts and the whole what they are for the sake 
of the organization? It seems to me that a man must 
throw away all known and accepted principles of sound 
judgment or rational perception, to deny the fact of final- 
ity here. 

5. The muscles exhibit adaptation unmistakably. This 
is apparent whether considered as to their intrinsic struct- 
ure or their location and order of attachment. Singly 
and in itself each muscle bears evident marks of being 
made for an end. It is composed of fasciculi, or bundles 
of fibres of variable size. These are inclosed in a cellular 
membranous investment or sheath. Each of the constit- 
uent fibres consists of a number of filaments. Toward 
the extremity of the muscle the muscular fibre ceases and 
the cellular structure becomes aggregated, and so modi- 
fied as to constitute tendons, by which it is tied to the 
bone. The peculiar characteristic of muscular fibre is 
contractility, or the power of shortening length on com- 
mand of the will or from the application of external stim- 
uli. The contraction is toward the middle of the muscle. 
When the stimulus is withdrawn the muscle is again re- 
laxed. By this particular property it is at once suited to 


: THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 105 


the service of producing motion. The fact of adaptation 
in a saw for cutting wood is not plainer or more real than 
that of a muscle for moving the bones and parts of the 
body. 

Taken together, and considered especially as to their 
location and points of origin and insertion, their sub- 
serviency to a plan and use is, if possible, still more 
evident. The disposition and point of attachment are 
always such that the contraction gives the direction and 
degree of motion needful for the convenient action and 
use of every part and of the entire body. For instance, 
the different muscles which move the arm are so tied to 
the three chief bones of its skeleton, and continued by 
the tendons extending into the hand, that by the pull of 
their simple contraction they furnish all the motions 
required for the activities, industries, and arts of life. 

And very remarkable it certainly is that the muscle is 
always found exactly fitted to the particular kind and 
degree of motion to which the special joint is adapted. 
Where the bones are united by a hinge joint, the muscles 
are arranged only for the motion for which that form of 
joint provides. Where there is a ball-and-socket joint, 
the muscles are inserted so as to give the rotary motion. 
There are more than five hundred muscles in the human 
body; and everywhere, in their size, length, and places of 
attachment, the principle of specific adjustment, not only 
to the most varied particulars of the bony frame, but 
to the necessities of every other part of the bodily or- 
ganization, is most conspicuously observable. In many 
places, as, for example, to secure the needed motion of 
the eye, or the delicate cunning of the fingers, anatomy 
exhibits the result as accomplished by what strikes the 


106 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


mind as a thoroughly studied, complicated, artistic 
contrivance, 

6. The digestive system, though very complex, and 
in some respects remote from inspection, when thorough- 
ly studied and understood is seen to be an impressive 
instance in which nature is made to act for a definite end, 
beginning a needed process and carrying it through a 
long series of provisions to its completion in the nourish- 
ment of the whole body. Let us briefly follow it out. 
The digestive organs are the mouth, the teeth, the sali- 
vary glands, the pharynx, cesophagus, stomach, intestines, 
lacteals, thoracic duct, liver, and the pancreas. 

The mouth, with the teeth and salivary glands, is 
adapted to the mastication and softening of foods. It 
forms a needful mill, put up at the commencement of the 
process. Through the pharynx and cesophagus a channel 
is provided for passing the prepared food into the stom- 
ach. Special muscles are furnished to perform the act of 
swallowing, and the food and drink are prevented from 
entering into the trachea or windpipe by a valve-like 
arrangement called the epiglottis. The stomach into 
which the food is delivered—and no carrying com- 
pany could show a better organization for delivery — 
is furnished with a peculiar fluid called the gastric 
juice, a powerful solvent of inimitable kind, secreted by 
the gastric gland. Harmless to the coats of the stomach, 
this gastric fluid attacks and dissolves all the various sub- 
stances suitable for food. Though manufactured regu- 
larly, through all the years of life, by the gastric gland, 
no human chemistry has been able to compound or pro- 
duce it. Its action reduces the foods to a pulpy homo- 
geneous mass, of creamy consistence, called chyme. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 107 


From the stomach the pylorus forms an orifice conducting 
the chyme into the duodenum, where, from the liver and 
pancreas, bile and pancreatic fluid are added, changing 
the chyme into chyle and residuum. In the duodenum 
and other parts of the small intestine a most remarkable 
arrangement is found, known as the dacteals. These are 
very minute vessels or openings in the mucous surface of 
the intestine, passing thence between the membranes of 
the mesentery to small glands, which they enter. There 
are several ranges of these glands. The first range col- 
lects many of the small vessels, and transmits a few 
larger ones to a second range. After passing through 
several successive ranges of these glands the lacteals, 
diminished in number but increased in size, proceed to 
the thoracic duct into which they open. As the chyle is 
moved over the mucous surface of the small intestine and 
comes in contact with these lacteal vessels, it is imbibed 
or taken up by them as through a filter, and passed on 
thence into the thoracic duct. This duct commencing 
in the abdomen, forms a continuous channel, passing 
upward through the diaphragm and ascending to the lower 
part of the neck, where it makes a sudden turn down- 
ward and forward, terminating by opening into a large 
vein which enters the heart. Carried up this channel, the 
chyle is poured into and mixed with the old blood at this 
point. Valves opening in the direction of the proper 
movement, but closing in the opposite, are parts of the 
elaborate arrangement for the long process. 

Looking at all this, and remembering the need to be 
provided for, namely, the preparation and change of the 
proper substances for the nourishment and growth of the 
body, the adaptation of the means to the end becomes clear 


108 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


and certain.. We see a complex and extended system, 
composed of separate and independent organs, brought, 
by special structure and place, into coneurrent action, and 
made to codperate in a result to which the first step looks 
as plainly as the last. A needful thing was before nature, 
and nature has been made to seek and accomplish the 
needful thing. 

%. The circulatory organs are for the distribution of 
the blood to every part of the body. They are the heart, 
arteries, veins, and capillaries. These are so connected as 
to form a continued series, with functions constituting a 
complete circle. The heart stands at the beginning, and is 
clearly a piece of nature’s mechanism for a purpose. It 
is a double organ, or has two sides called the right and 
left. Each side is also divided into two parts. It is com- 
posed of peculiar fibre, with strong contractile power, the 
two sides and the two cavities of each side working in 
corresponding action under the impulse of a special nerve 
organization. One side of the heart is so arranged as to 
receive the mixture of old blood and chyle from the large 
vein which enters there, and to pass it through the lungs ; 
the other to take it and force it again into the body 
through the arteries, for the nourishment and upbuilding 
of the system. By its automatic action, the provision for 
which is so strange a fact of its muscular and nervous 
structure, the heart is a pump of immense force, with 
pipes and valves finely constructed and connected. It 
forms a conspicuous instance of adaptation—an organ 
put together, in nature’s growth, on mechanical princi- 
ples, to effect a specific and unquestionable end in the 
animal economy. 

The completion of the circulatory process is provided 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 109 


for in the arteries, capillaries, and veins. The arteries, 
for carrying the blood from the heart, under the strong 
pressure with which it is forced into them, are made of 
strong material and laid deep as a necessary precaution 
for safety, while the veins in which there is little pressure 
are weaker and less guarded. The capillaries constitute a 
microscopic network, and are so distributed to every part 
of the body as to make it impossible to insert a needle 
point beneath the skin without wounding some of them. 
They unite at the one end with the terminal extremities 
of the arteries, and at the other with the commencement 
of the veins, establishing thus a communication between 
the arteries and veins, or the outward and returning flow 
of the blood. The valves, set at various points in the 
veins as well as in the heart, to prevent a reflow of the 
blood, are remarkable exhibitions of nature’s mechanics, 
and so clearly exist in a relation of means to a specific 
end that they disclosed to Harvey the great law of the 
circulation of the blood. The whole circulatory apparatus, 
consisting thus of the heart, arteries, and veins, constitutes 
a structure as clearly planned for carrying the blood from 
the heart, distributing it to every part of the body, and 
returning it again for oxygenation, mixed with the fresh 
chyle, as is the system of pipes planned, by which water is 
not only conducted into an engine and turned into power 
there, but conducted off, and, after condensation, returned 
again to the point of origin to repeat the round of service. 

8. The Jungs bear equal testimony that nature corre- 
lates her organizations to particular ends. The animal 
economy being in other respects as it is, the aeration of 
the blood is a needful function, The organ for effecting 
this is formed and placed in immediate connection with 


110 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


the heart. “‘The lungs, as is well known, consist of two 
large organs, on either side of the chest, called the left 
and the right lungs. The right lung is divided into three 
smaller lungs, called lobes; the left into but one or two. 
On examining any of these lobes it will be found to be 
made up of an immense number of small membranous 
bags, all closely packed together. These bags, called cells, 
connect by means of the bronchial tubes and windpipe 
with the air through the nose and mouth. They vary in 
size, but on an average are about ;}, of an inch in 
diameter, and the total number of the cells in the lungs 
has been estimated at six hundred millions. Their walls 
are exceedingly thin, and the cells may therefore be easily 
compressed. The whole mass of the lungs is also exceed- 
ingly elastic, and by the action of a system of muscles 
their volume is alternately increased and diminished in 
the process of respiration. The amount of air which is 
thus drawn into the cells and again expelled at each 
inspiration differs in different individuals. The average 
quantity in the ordinary tranquil respiration of an adult is 
about a pint; but in a full respiration it may be as much 
as two and a half pints, and by an effort the lungs may be 
made to inhale from five to seven pints. As the average 
in health is about eighteen inspirations a minute, which 
corresponds to about eighteen pints of air inhaled and 
exhaled, it follows that three thousand gallons of air pass 
through the lungs of an adult man every day.” ’ When the 
blood, freshly charged with the inflowing chyle, is received 
from the large vein into the heart, it is pumped thence 
through the pulmonary artery into the lungs. This artery 
divides and branches, all through the lungs, into very 


1 Cooke's Religion and Chemistry, p. 107. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. ~AT 


small capillary tubes which ramify on the surface of the 
air-cells. In these capillaries, formed of the thinnest 
conceivable membranes, the blood is brought into such 
close relation to the air as to absorb the oxygen needed to 
prepare it for its great function of nourishment. Thus 
prepared, it is returned by a series of veins to the left side 
of the heart, by which it is again forced through the 
general circulation of the body. The peculiar organization 
and connections of the lungs, especially their connection 
with the heart as a distinct but codperating organ, form a 
clear and unquestionable adjustment of means to an end. 

9. The process of nutrition, accomplished through the 
digestive, the respiratory, and the circulatory organs, de- 
serves to be briefly recalled. This is the change of the 
elements in the blood into the various substances which 
eompose the body. Under the wonderful chemistry of 
animal life and by the action of the nutrient arteries, 
that is, the finest capillaries, ‘these elements are trans- 
formed at every point into precisely what is there needed 
for repair of waste and for growth. The matter is not 
transformed and spread miscellaneously and indiscrimi- 
nately anywhere and everywhere or at random, but de- 
posited in exactest quality and quantity at the spot 
required by each part and by the balance and beauty of 
the parts and of the whole. Out of the same blood is 
formed at one place bone, at another muscular fibre, at 
another fat, at another nerve, at another nail, at another 
hair, in the precise measure and modification that accord 
with the plan of each organ and of the entire body. 
Where lime is wanted, lime is carried and deposited. 
Where silica is needed, silica is carried and left. Where 


iron, carbon, chlorine, or any element whatever is proper, 


1 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


there it is put. So the constant waste is repaired or the 
growth is carried on in the nicest proportion for utility 
and for beauty. Does not all this exhibit nature’s proc- 
esses looking to specific ends and accomplishing them ? 
Account for it as we may, the process or work of forming 
and building up the body goes on, the differentiation of 
the parts occurring from the common blood, with all the 
nice discrimination of means for ends and with all the 
steady adherence to the ideals of a fixed plan that the 
most intelligent and forecasting scientist can display in 
the best productions of the laboratory. 

10. A very illustrative organization is found in the 
ankle. This is the arrangement binding down the ten- 
dons there by a ligament passing over them. The foot is 
placed at a considerable angle with the leg. As a conse- 
quence of this, the flexible tendons passing from the leg 
to the toes, if unsecured, when the muscle contracts, 
would start away from the ankle. But they are pre- 
vented by a clearly precautionary arrangement. A strong 
ligament is stretched across the instep, tying them se- 
curely down. Cut the ligament and the tendons will 
start up. It is a plain instance of a bandage to effect the 
specific end of keeping the cords in place. And it is to 
be observed that here, as in many other structures, there 
can be no conceivable tendency in the part itself toward 
self-creation or continuance in existence. The function 
it fulfils would tend rather to the destruction and disap- 
pearance of the part. 

11. The organs for the perpetuation of the various 
animal species exhibit one of the most striking and ineon- 
trovertible cases of which we know, in which nature’s 
organization is directed to a predetermined end. These 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. PHS 


organs, in addition to the directness with which their de- 
sign is assured, have this remarkable peculiarity that the 
corresponding parts of them belong to different indi- 
viduals. The adaptation ingludes an adjustment of 
structural provision in separate beings. This provision 
made for the perpetuation of the human and the animal 
races allows no rational explanation without the admission 
of final cause. Science utterly fails to eliminate design 
from the structure and function of these organs, or even 
to describe and explain their parts except in terms that 
express design, purpose, or ends. 

2. It is unnecessary to multiply examples of finality, 
of this class.) They may be seen everywhere. The few 
instances given represent the truth for the whole of 
organic nature. We add only one more illustration, in 
the structure of birds. And we simply quote here from 
Prof. Chadbourne: “The whole bird tribe is a marvel of 
special adaptations. The whole external structure which 
characterizes birds is a special adaptation to the external 
world; and when we consider the means by which this 
perfect relationship is secured, we are delighted by the 
skill manifested in the whole plan, and the perfection 
with which that plan is carried out. Flight is secured by 
the most skilful mechanism of feathers, and the accumu- 
lation of muscle around the. shoulder of the bird. What 
can be more perfect in its mechanism than each feather of 
the wing — its hollow elastic shaft securing lightness and 
strength? Then we have the skilful joining of all the 
lines of the web, and the combination of barbs and hooks 
that has ever challenged the admiration of men. The 
position of all the feathers is such that by expanding the 


wing they cover the greatest extent possible, with no 
8 


114 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


openings between them. The muscles are not only of 
great strength, but they are so arranged that the wing 
strikes the air at the required angle to enable the bird to 
rise and completely contrel its motions. And then ob- 
serve the compactness with which the instrument is folded 
away when not in use. The great expenditure of mus- 
cular force is provided for by the great lung capacity, 
the whole viscera even being bathed with air. The bird 
by instinct trims its feathers, when the web has been 
broken; and because the feathers are too long, and not 
of a structure like hair, to receive from the body the oil 
which they need to preserve their gloss, nature has pro- 
vided a never failing bottle of oil on the back of the bird 
which instinct has taught it how to use.” * 

13. The human or animal organization must be consid- 
ered as a whole, or as a complex of various organs and 
parts. All these separate parts, each a complete organ- 
ism in itself, are combined in action and function into a 
full unity and individuality. The plan that is seen in 
each part thus becomes more conspicuously unquestion- 
able. The body, viewed as a whole, exhibits such a 
marvel of elaborate, skilful, and accurate contrivance, 
adapted to the service and enjoyment of life, as to call 
forth the admiration of thoughtful men in all ages. 
“The human body,” said Galen, “is a perpetual hymn 
to the praise of its Maker.” The point to be here spe- 
cially noted is that finality, or parts acting for ends, is 
involved in the very concept of an organized being. Dr. 
Porter says, with evident truth: “An organic being, or 
an organism, can only be defined as a being of which 
each organ acts for the integrity and well-being of every 


1 Lectures on Natural Theology, p. 107. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 115 


other organ, and all act together for the life of the whole. 
More abstractly and in the terms of the relation in ques- 
tion [the relation of final cause], an organism is a being 
in which each part and the whole are respectively means 
and end for one another. We find it, in fact, to be true 
that in every living being, whether plant or animal, the 
elements or organs act together so as to promote the 
action of each other and of the whole. If the appro- 
priate function of each organ is performed, the function 
of every other is also fulfilled, and when all together are 
exerted they are the conditions of the growth and devel- 
opment of the plant or animal. In the animal the action 
of the lungs is necessary to that of the heart, and the 
action of the heart to that of the lungs, the action of 
both to the action of the stomach, and the action of the 
stomach to both of these, and the mutual action of these 
and the remaining organs to the health and life of the 
body.”* And we must add that neither the separate 
parts with their functions, nor the united organism with 
its action can be rationally accounted for by efficient 
causation alone, nor even defined by its terms. The ele- 
ments of which the organism is composed have their well 
ascertained mechanical and chemical properties, and when 
they are combined in non-living or inorganic substances, 
they exhibit only the action of these properties and their 
laws. But in the production of organisms and their cor- 
relation to the special interests of living beings, the 
causal action of these elements is clearly transcended. 
Neither the tissues nor the “cells” to which physiology 
seeks to trace organic structures, nor the chemical powers 
and laws of the elements in themselves, serve at all to 


1 The Human Intellect, p. 597. 


116 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 









explain these results, except as presided over and directed 
by a predetermining and correlating thought. The rela- 
tion of means to end is therefore not only an unquestion- 
able fact in organisms, but a fact insoluble by the simple 
causal force of the known properties of the elements.’ 


INSTINCT. 


To understand the bearing of instinct on the question 
of finality in nature, we must recall what instinct is, and 
its relation to mere organization and function on the one 
hand, and to intelligence on the other. 

Instinct a properly be defined to be an_effective 
blind tendency in animals toward specific kinds of f action _ 
for _self- “preservation Vand the continuance of the the ‘species, 
regulative “of the : appetites and of various functional capa- 
cities. Under it animals act without experience or train- 
ing. They pursue a course of wisdom and intelligence 
without themselves exercising any calculating judgment, 
or understanding the ends to be accomplished by their 
action. It has no free choice. Operating by some innate 
or constitutional impulse, it works, in like conditions, in 
the same manner in all the individuals of each species.” 
Its action is uniform in the same circumstances. If any te» 
deviation appears to occur, the change or modification is 
provided for in the aggregate law of instinct. It is only 
diverted by circumstances, the deviation being itself as 
truly under law as is deviation of organism from ordinary 
form in the same species. “In proportion as instinct pre- 
dominates, we may predict with certainty the action of 
the individual, when we know the life-history of the 


1 For an able discussion of this point, see Janet's Final Causes, Bk. I, Chap. IV. v 
? Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter: Mental Physiology (D. Appleton & Co.), p. 56. 9h / 


; 
‘ 
J 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. Ibe 


species; its whole aim being to work out a design which x 


— 


is formed for it, not by it, and the tendency to which is * \ 


991 


embodied, as it were, in its organization. “An animal > ~ =& 





~ 


is already all t that it is through its instinct; a reason foreign \Wwa 


to it, the reason of another, has already made every provi- \¥ 
‘sion for it, while man_uses_his.own reason.” * Schopen- i 
hauer says: “The aim toward which animals work so ~ 
directly in the acts of instinct, as if it were a known _ 
motive, remains entirely unknown to them.” Darwin ~) 


® 


states the generally accepted idea of instinct: “An action, = 


which we ourselves should require experience to en to enable us .\ *¥ 


to perform, when performed by an animal, more re_ especially AN 


by a very young one, without any experience, and when 


performed by many individuals in the same_way,, without 


~ 


— 


he relation of instinct to mere structure and organic 
Junction is readily and clearly distinguishable. Organisms _ 
have functions which they fulfil by mere force of the ~ 
material or vital organization. This order of action ind \ 
found even in the vegetable kingdom. It is one of the J " 
features which distinguish the vegetable realm from the’>, | 
inorganic. As soon as nature rises into the organic realm, “ ~ 
in plant life, we find specialized structures with distinct» 
functions. Not only do the elements, under the laws of ™~. 
growth, move as if marshalled under an ordaining and 7 


directing intelligence into the formation of organs and * “= 


1Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter: Mental Physiology (D. Appleton & Co.), wm 57. & , 
2Kant; quoted from Krauth-Fleming: Vocabulary of the Philosophical . 
. ~J ~ 
Sciences, p. 713. ~ a. 


3 Origin of Species, Chap. VIII. It is proper to say that Darwin does not think — 
these characteristics universal, and believes that what have been called the f= 
instinctive actions of the inferior animals are to be referred to experience and; 
reasoning. His view, however, has not been well sustained, and breaks down 
when applied to the facts. 


° ‘ j 
. , / A / , 
for CMAALHYM Aw 


™~ 





their knowing for what purpose it is performed, is usualy ~ @* 
said to be instinctive.” * : 
x 
 ¥ 
. 
S 


~ 4 , 2 " 
han pumet Voaig 


Lf 
ue 
> a 


118 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


organisms, but these organs are found fulfilling certain 
needful functions for the perfection of the plant or the 
perpetuation of the species. The processes which take 
place in the springing corn or the growing oak act for the 
completion of the plant or tree and the preparation of 
seed for future growths. This principle of organ and 
function, thus begun in the vegetable kingdom, is con- 
tinued in the higher range of animal life.’ It is seen and 
illustrated in the action of the heart, the lungs, the secre- 
tory processes of the glands, and in all reflex nerve motion. 
Instinct is something superadded to this, supplementing it 
in further provision for the animal’s own needs and wel- 
fare and the continuance of the race. There are some 
animals so low in the scale of being that they appear to 
possess no instinct at all, or very little, and to be but 
slightly organic or vitalized masses. Simple function ap- 
pears to be the whole of their life-activity — function not 
much above that in the organism of a wheat stalk or an 
apple tree. This may be illustrated in the case of a clam 
or an oyster. Apparently, at least, it has no more conscious 
relation to its young than the tree has to its seed. “The 
production of its young is simply the result of organic 
change, the law of its growth, like the budding and blos- 


soming of the tree.” ? 


The only indication of instinct 
about it appears in the moving or closing of its cell for 
self-preservation. Even this seems merely structural and 
automatic. But instinct is something different and higher 
than such directly functional action. It appears where in 
addition to this, and turning the possibilities which organs 


provide for into appropriate effect, specific impulse and 


1 Chadbourne’s Lowell Lectures on Instinct, 1871, pp. 49-96, 128-136. 
2Chadbourne’s Natural Theology, p. 94. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 119: 


guidance are supplied to animals both for the care of 
themselves and the needs of their offspring. It utilizes 
and directs the aggregate of organic functions to ulterior 
and higher ends. “Instinct supplements structure and 
functions, putting them to the best use, making a higher 
type of life possible than could be manifested by structure 
and function alone. The bee has a structure fitting it for 
gathering honey, and the rings of the body have the 
function of secreting wax. Instinct is needed to impel 
the bee to gather the honey and form the scales of wax 
into the honeycomb.” * Besides the organs and their 
functions, therefore, there is an added impulse, so strong 
that it becomes like a secret wheel in a system of 
machinery, which is so important that without it the entire: 
machinery would fail. 

The relation of instinct to animal intelligence, though 
in many respects difficult to be determined, is in the main 
easily recognized. Many animals seem to possess what 
may be termed intelligence. It is by this that they enter 
into conscious relations with man, understand his wishes, 
and codperate with his aims. Some of them seem, at least. 
in a measure, to comprehend what they do in these rela- 
tions, and voluntarily concur in human plans and work. 
We do not call this part of animal capacity instinct. We 
call it “ animal intelligence,” whatever that may be. But 
the term “instinct” properly stands, not for this higher 
range of action often strikingly illustrated in special feats 
of sagacity, in which the domestic animals understand 
and serve men, but the inferior grade of blind movement. 
supplementing functional activities, in which they act on 
fixed methods for self-preservation and the perpetuation. 


1 Chadbourne’s Natural Theology, p. 92. 


120 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


of the race. “The character which, above all, distin- 
guishes instinctive actions,” says Milne-Edwards, “from 
those which may be called intelligent or rational, is that 
they are not the result of imitation and experience; that 
they are always executed in the same manner, and, to all 
appearance, without being preceded by the foresight 
either of their result or of their utility. Reason supposes 
a judgment and a choice; instinct, on the contrary, is a 
blind impulse which naturally impels the animal to act in 
a determinate manner; its effects may sometimes be modi- 
fied by experience, but they never depend on it.”* What- 
ever explanation may be given of this force, whether it 
shall be found due to special sensations produced by 
environment or to reflex action analogous to that which 
impels organic motion itself, or to some other cause, it is 
a clearly supplemental provision carrying the complex of 
organic functions to their full appropriate results, and 
securing, through a non-intelligent and enforced activity, 
an intelligent and steady codrdination of wise means to 
special, predetermined, and far-reaching ends. Blind 
powers have been organized to act as if they had pierced 
the future with a clear foresight of what would be needed, 
and with the most discriminating choice of the fitting way 
to accomplish it. The very powers and laws of nature, 
even such as recent science alone has been able to discover, 
have been taken into account in the adaptive processes 
through which instinct pursues its blind way to its un- 
known but appointed result. 

A glance at the action of instinct in a few of its lead- 
ing forms will be sufficient to explain and illustrate its 
bearing as a fact of clear finality in nature. 


1 Milne-Edwards: Zodlogie, § 319, quoted from Janet's Final Causes. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 121 


1. Some forms of it regulate the choice of foods. This 
is one of the lowest and simplest acts of instinct, joining 
closely on what is simply organic and arising out of it. 
Appetite, being properly only functional, craves, and 
instinct directs the action of this craving, so as to avoid 
what would be injurious and select what is nourishing. 
From the immense diversity of materials it picks out with 
steady accuracy those which have the right constituents, 
and which the digestive system has been prepared to use, 
each species of animals having its own foods, and its young 
selecting them at once. Without hint from the chemist’s 
analysis of secret poisons, or instruction of any kind, 
instinct recognizes them and rejects them. In the lowest 
animal orders, as the entozoa, the food seems to be simply 
absorbed. But in the higher grades, it is selected under 
some exercise of the senses and perceptions. If it be said 
that this selection is simply from the sense of smell, each 
species being guided by what is pleasant to it, it is yet to 
be accounted for that the smell has been so precisely 
correlated to the animal’s interests and safety, since 
“there is no necessary relation between the pleasure of an 
external sense and the needs of the internal organization.” * 

The feeding instinct often involves correspondent 
action in several individuals. It is largely so among birds. 
The young bird, just hatched, raises its head and opens its 
bill. Its hunger impels to motion, and its instinct secures 
the right motion. But this would be in vain, if alone. 
The instinct of the mother bird, however, responds and 
brings the proper food. Without this correlation of 
instincts the young would perish. 

When the eggs of the bee deposited in the cells are 


1 Janet's Final Causes, p. 84. 


122 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


about to hatch, the worker-bees eagerly seek for that par- 
ticular species of nourishment on which the larve are to 
feed. This consists of pollen with a proportion of honey 
and water, which is partly digested in the stomach of the 
bees, and made to vary in its quality according to the age 
of the young. As soon as the eggs are hatched, the bees 
feed the larve with great assiduity with this prepared chyle. 
When, from any cause, there has been a failure in the pro- 
duction of young queens, and it becomes necessary to raise 
a queen, the worker-bees, having placed eggs, or larvae not 
yet three days old, in enlarged cells, called “ royal cells,” 
supply these cells with a peculiar kind of food which 
appears to be more stimulating than that of ordinary bees. 
This is furnished to the royal larv in. greater quantities 
than can be consumed, so that a portion always remains 
behind in the cell after transformation. By this kind of 
food, in the enlarged cells, the larvze are developed into 
queen bees.’ Dr. Carpenter well says: “This last action 
is one which it is scarcely possible that either theory or 
experience could lead the bees to perform; for not the 
most ingenious reasoning could have anticipated the fact 
that by supplying a worker-larva with food of a different 
quality, and enlarging the cell around it, a change so 
remarkable should be produced in its structure, capacities, 
and instincts; and the circumstances of the case seem no 
less to forbid the notion that the bees owe a knowledge of 
the process to experimental researches carried on either 
by themselves or by their ancestors, for the purpose of 
securing an artificial supply of queens when the natural 
supply fails. That recourse is uniformly had to it when- 
ever the case requires, has been repeatedly shown by 


1 Hunter: Art. on “Bees” in Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 123 


experiment, the removal of the parent queen and of the 
royal larve from the hive being always followed by the 
manufacture, so to speak, of worker-larve into new 
queens. The irrationality of the impulse which prompts 
the bees to this action is evidenced by its occasional 
performance under circumstances which, if they could 
reason, would have shown them that it must be ineffective. 
A case has been recorded in which a queen, having only 
laid drone or male eggs, was stung to death by the 
workers, who cast her body out of the hive; but being 
thus left without a queen, and no royal larve being in 
process of development to replace her, the workers actually 
tried to obtain a queen by treating drone larve in the 
usual manner — of course without effect.” * 

2. Some instincts are organized to the preparation 
and storage of food. This is rendered needful by the 
change of seasons. The action is illustrated in the well 
known habits of bees, building suitable vessels and col- 
lecting and storing away honey by industrious anticipa- 
tive labor. It is seen in the case of squirrels which 
gather nuts of various kinds, and make use of hollow 
trees or other available places as magazines. They some- 
times make deposits at different places, which they are 
usually able afterward to find even in spite of the fall of 
snows. Various animals gather the ripe fruits of the 
earth and lay them up for food. A species of harvesting 
‘is often practised. The Alpine hare of Mongolia is said to 
lay in a store of hay for winter use, collecting it at the 
end of summer, and stacking it, after being dried, at the 
entrance of its home. This serves for its couch under 
ground, and for food till the return of spring. There are 


1 Mental Physiology, p. 60. 





124 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


certain leaf-cutting ants which dry the collected leaves 
before taking them into their houses. Some ants harvest 
various seeds and store them away.’ “The Siberian ro- 
dent, lagomys pica, gathers autumn grass, cutting, dry- 
ing, and putting it away like farmers gathering hay.’? 
Thus these, and many other species of animals, ineapable 
of consciously foreseeing the need, yet provide for it in a 
course of action wisely, accurately, and uniformly ad- 
justed to the ends. 

3. Some instincts are adjusted to building, for the 
sake of both the individual and the species. “The most 
remarkable examples of instinctive action that the entire 
animal kingdom can furnish are presented in the opera- 
- tions of bees, wasps, ants, and other social insects which 
construct habitations for themselves upon a plan which 
the most enlightened human intelligence, working accord- 
ing to most refined geometrical principles, could not sur- 
pass; but which yet do so without education communi- 
cated by their parents or progressive attempts of their 
own, and with no trace of hesitation, confusion, or inter- 
ruption, the several individuals of a community all labor- 
ing effectively to one common end, because their instine- 
tive or consensual impulses are the same.” * 

The building operations of bees have been to all ages 
a wonder of blind impulse doing the work of knowledge 
and wisdom. Admiration never ceases at the regularity 
and accuracy with which their cells have been con- 
structed to afford from the materials the greatest space 
for each cell, and admit of their being joined together on 
the same plane without leaving interstices. The mathe- 

1W. Lander Lindsay: Mind in the Lower Animals, Vol. I, pp. 370, 371. 


2Janet's Final Causes, p. 85. 
3Dr. W.B. Carpenter: Mental Physiology, p. 57. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 125 


matical determination of the order for the construction ful- 
filling the necessary conditions, though difficult, has often 
been made. Mr. Hunter, one of the highest authorities 
on the subject, tells us: ‘“Reaumer proposed to Kdnig, 
pupil of the celebrated Bernouilli, and an expert analyst, 
the solution of the problem: To find the construction of 
a hexagonal prism terminated by a pyramid composed of 
three equal and similar rhombs (and the whole of given 
capacity), such that the solid may be made with the least 
quantity of materials — which involved the determination 
of the angles of the rhombs that should cut the hexago- 
nal prism so as to form with it the figure of the least pos- 
sible surface. Maraldi had previously measured the angles 
of the rhombus, and found them to be 109° 28’ and 70° 
32’, respectively. But Kénig was not aware of this until 
after he had solved the problem, and assigned 109° 26’ 
and 70° 34’ asthe angles, The Memoirs of the Academy 
of Science for 1712, containing Maraldi’s paper, was then 
sent to him, and Kénig was equally surprised and pleased 
to find how nearly the actual measurement agreed with 
the result of his own investigation. The measurement of 
Maraldi is correct, and the bees have, with rigorous accu- 
racy, solved the problem, for the error turns out to be in 
K6nig’s solution. The construction of cells, then, is 
demonstrated to be such that no other that could be con- 
ceived would take so little material and labor to afford the 
same room. Confirmatory solutions have been worked out 
by other mathematicians. But a more essential advantage 
than even the economy of wax results from this structure, 
namely, that the whole fabric has much greater strength 
than if it were composed of planes at right angles to one 
another; and when we consider the weight they have to 


126 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


support when stored with honey, pollen, and the young 
brood, besides that of the bees themselves, it is evident 
that strength is a material requisite in the work. It 
has often been a subject of wonder how such diminutive 
insects could have adopted and adhered to so regular a 
plan of architecture, and what principles can actuate so 
great a multitude to codperate, by the most effectual and 
systematic mode, in its completion. Buffon attempted to 
explain the hexagonal form by the uniform pressure of a 
great number of bees, all working at the same time, 
equally exerted in all directions in a limited space. But 
his supposition is confuted by its being directly at variance 
with the actual process employed by theinsects. It might 
be supposed that bees had been provided by nature with 
instruments for building, of a form somewhat analogous 
to the angles of the cells; but in no part, either of the 
teeth, antennz, or feet, can any such correspondence be 
traced. Their shape in no respect answers to that of the 
rhombs which are constructed by their means, any more 
than the chisel of the sculptor resembles the statue which 
it has carved. The shape of the head is, indeed, triangu- 
lar, but its three angles are acute, and are different from 
that of the planes of the cells. The form of the plates of 
wax, as they are moulded in the pouches in which this sub- 
stance is secreted, is an irregular pentagon, in no respects 
affording a model for any of the parts which compose the 
honeycomb.” * 

Everyone is familiar with the nest-building of birds. 
Each species builds in its own way, and the skilled or- 
nithologist knows the bird by the nest. The bird that 
never saw a nest will construct one as all its tribe has 


1 Art. “* Bees,’ Encyclopedia Britannica. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 127 


done before it, selecting the same materials, if accessible, 
and putting them together in the same way. That it acts 
without deliberation and choice is evident from the fact 
that it acts with a uniformity which presents no more de- 
viation than the same species of trees does in the arrange- 
ment of leaves or the form of blossom. That the physio- 
logical condition preceding this action should set the bird, 
and all kinds of birds, to the particular work of construct- 
ing nests, evidently requires some directive force supple- 
mental to mere function, and the uniformities with which 
this works preclude the idea that each one is acting from 
an intelligent choice of either object or method. A hun- 
dred different species, of the same size, and surrounded by 
the same materials, and for which we might suppose the same 
sort of nest would answer, will build a hundred different 
kinds of nests; but a thousand birds of the same species, 
though widely separated, without instruction, some young, 
some old, will build exactly alike. The old show no more 
skill than the young; the young show no new ideas or in- 
dependent methods. This uniformity within the limits of 
each species is best for the members of it. The varia- 
tions, also, which mark the building of the different spe- 
cies, are found to be accurately adapted to the place and 
needs of each. Though the impulse works without com- 
prehending its reasons, it works with the directive force 
of a wise and discriminating counsel. He who does not 
recognize the intelligence that rules it can scarcely himself 
be intelligent. 

This constructive instinct is a large characteristic in the 
animal world. It appears wherever we look. The ants 
arrange their many-chambered and curious homes. The 
beaver constructs his strong dam, and builds his village of 


128 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


houses. The hornet builds its nest. The silk worm weaves 
its cocoon. The common caterpillar fills the forks of trees 
with hammocks. The spider beautifies the fields and 
fences with the entrance network of its dwellings. Ani- 
mal life is everywhere exhibiting the activity of this adapt- 
ive process, 

4. Many of the most wonderful instincts are for the 
continuance of the species. Some of these are so start- 
lingly peculiar as to become impressive proofs of a distinet 
correlation of complex powers to specific ends — ends which 
lie outside of the common and necessary action of mere 
matter and life, and utterly beyond the reach of the ani- 
mal’s own knowledge and planning. This is illustrated in 
the building and feeding methods of the bees, already 
mentioned, and especially in the strange but effective proe- 
ess which they pursue in developing the queens. The 
nidification of birds is but the beginning of the activity 
which the parental relation involves. The bird sits for 
weeks upon the eggs to hatch them—a service which, 
however plainly it is a means to an end, breaks abruptly 
across its usual habits, and forms a sort of specially 
inserted section in its life. After hatching, this same in- 
stinct not only defends the brood, by acts admirably 
adapted to the object, but selects the proper food, and 
puts it into the mouth of the young. This order of things 
is pursued even when the parent had itself been artifi- 
cially hatched and reared, and had no experience by which 
to learn. 

Many varieties of insects are found depositing their 
eggs with the strictest regard to the presence of the food 
required by the young. This is attended with peculiar- 
ities which show that they do not understand the bearings 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 129° 


of their action. The prospective adaptation not only 
crosses the chasm between the annual generations, but 
connects two states which have scarcely anything in com- 
mon. The butterfly anticipates and provides for the food, 
not such as itself uses and enjoys, but such as the newly 
hatched larve will need. ‘The tent moth lays her eggs 
upon the apple twig, closely packed and varnished to pro- 
tect them till the warmth of spring wakes the young to 
life, when the new leaf is ready for their food. While 
forests of trees invite her by their slender twigs, on no- 
tree does she put an egg but on the kind on which the 
larve may feed.” “The ponzpiles at full age live on 
flowers, but their larvze are carnivorous, and their mothers 
always provide for their nourishment by placing beside 
their eggs, in a nest prepared for the purpose, the bodies. 
of some spiders or caterpillars.” 

Mr. Mivart mentions a certain wasp-like animal that, 
by stinging spiders in the particular part of the cephalo- 
thorax which contains the principal nervous centre, para- 
lyzes them without killing them, and in this condition 
stores them up to serve as food when the larve quit the 
egg. The mystery of the instinct is heightened by its 
leading the insect to sting the spider in precisely the 
right spot to produce the particular results required. 

The unique fact of periodic migration is at least in 
some degree related to this purpose. Various birds make 
their way to the same nesting localities year after year 
over thousands of miles of land and sea, by day and by 
night. A common impulse is upon them, and hence they 
go in flocks, young and old alike. The impulse acts with 
the regularity of the budding of trees or the blooming of 


flowers. ‘Many fishes make long journeys to deposit 
9 


130 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


their eggs in a place suitable for their young. The 
parent returns to the ocean, and the young fish when 
hatched and grown to proper size journeys to the great 
deep as well as if its parent had remained to act as guide. 
It is led to its right place as by a divine knowledge. The 
thousands that go out for the first time find their feeding 
grounds, and never forget to return when ‘the time comes 
for them to deposit their spawn. Some seek the fresh 
streams, and some the salt ocean; each one seeks the 
proper condition for its young, which it is never to see, 
and to which it probably has no conscious relation. It 
leaves its accustomed haunts, where would seem to be the 
most natural place for breeding, and seeks out a far- 
distant location to which its instinct guides it. This im- 
pulse was given to complete its relation to the world, and 
is the same evidence of design as the form of the fin or 
the structure of the gill.” * 

These few forms and examples of instinct will suffice to 
illustrate its nature and significance. It takes up the con- 
trol or regulation of animal action at the point to which 
‘mere organization and function have brought it, and car- 
ries it up and over to the boundary at which intelligence 
and freedom come into play. The whole animal kingdom 
is astir with its action. Its utilities are omnipresent. It 
directs to a thousand specific objects needed in the whole 
system of things, with a uniformity on the one hand that 
looks like simple mechanics, and with an adaptiveness on 
the other hand that appears divinely wise and discrimi- 
nating. It includes a principle of accommodating variabil- 
ity by which it rises far above a fixed automatism, and 
under stress of emergency presents the appearance of 


1Chadbourne: Natural Theology, p. 97. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. eal 


expedients full of inventive skill and adjustive purpose. 
The prescience and wisdom that work through it often far 
surpass the forecast and wisdom of man. When acting in 
normal conditions, undisturbed by disarranging circum- 
stances, it never hesitates or falters, it takes no time for 
deliberation, and makes no mistakes. It works frequent 
prodigies which remain “insoluble problems” in specula- 
tive science, and justify the exclamation of Kant: “It is 
the voice of God.” So impressively does it force its 
wonders of adaptive prevision and wisdom on the recogni- 
tion of men, that when skeptical thought has excluded 
the rational theistic explanation of it all, atheistic specu- 
lation seeks some account of it in the supposition of 
an Unconscious Intelligence in the world itself."| That it 
works for ends is the very essence or defining attribute 
of the power. So thoroughly and deeply is this its lead- 
ing characteristic that descriptive science cannot describe 
its place and action except in the terms of final cause. 


THE GENERAL CONSTITUTION OF THE WORLD. 


The matter bearing on the question of finality under 
this head is found in looking at the general relations 
between different parts of the earth-system itself, and the 
relation between this and other parts of the solar and 
starry systems. 

1. The history of the earth itself, as clearly read in 
geological science, makes the fact indisputably certain 
that the progress of our globe has not been simply a for- 
ward and confused movement in time, but constantly 
toward what is better and more useful. It has been real 


-advance. What each period was made by the preceding 


1Von Hartmann’s Philosophy of the Unconscious, Introductory (A), III. 


7 


132 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


was not after the manner of a continuance on a level of 
miscellaneous and aimless uncertainty, but into a more 
elevated range of order and utility. The earliest and 
lowest geological condition was wholly unsuited to life. 
So far as discoverable, it was azoic. By some cause or 
other the atoms adopted action of beneficial tendency, 
and worked up into higher things than they first exhib- 
ited. In each later stage, there was an enriching harvest 
from the earlier. The movement steadily wrought out 
superior conditions. And as we stand in this last age and 
look back, we see an immense progression, wrought on the 
line of an orderly ascent through countless years, and we 
are surrounded with the products, delivered to us out of. 
all that past, which provide for the existence and welfare 
of the human race. The movement has been from chaos 
to cosmos, or a world rich in orderly adaptations and in 
beauty. It has advanced from dead matter into life, and 
into suitable provision for that life. Metals and minerals 
have been formed and stored away, making possible the 
high utilities and enjoyments of the civilization and cul- 
ture of this latest age of time. The history presents no 
appearance of aimlessness. The very law of progress, 
easily read in the earth’s evolution, and sometimes urged 
by atheistic sophistry to discredit theism, is really and in 
itself a fact of useful adaptation, incapable of explanation 
except in some original, fundamental, all-inclusive design. 

2. The existence and constitution of the atmosphere 
reveal finality. The wisdom it displays cannot be credited 
to accident. It has been placed about our globe as an 
aerial ocean, of about forty-five miles depth. It is held 
down to the earth by the power of gravitation, with a 
force on the surface equal to about fifteen pounds to the 


i 32 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. BS) 


square inch. It is composed of oxygen and nitrogen 
gases, in such proportions as to supply the conditions for 
life, both vegetable and animal. These elements are not 
united, but only mixed. Yet they are so balanced and 
held in equilibrium by the force of gravitation that they 
keep their relative proportions everywhere, while the 
particles have such easy motion among themselves as to 
permit us to move in the bottom of this atmospheric ocean 
without feeling its presence. “It is firm enough to sup- 
port the wings of a lark as he mounts the sky, and yet so 
yielding as not to detain the tiniest insect in its flight.” 
The atmosphere presents most impressive adaptations to 
the general constitution of the earth and all the utilities 
and enjoyments of the life of the world. A few of them 
will suffice as illustrations. 

It bears and conveys whatever is needed for vegetable 
life and growth. The atmosphere meets the soil of the 
earth and joins with it in furnishing the conditions and 
productive forces for plant organization. If the soil holds 
and can give some portion, the air fits its own supply to 
that of the ground, and the mysterious process is accom- 
plished in which nature rises above mechanical action into 
living forms. Not a seed germinates, not a flower blooms, 
not a tree grows, but as the atmosphere is present with its 
prepared materials and adapted forces. The treasures of 
the ground would be in vain if not supplemented in the 
air. 

It is constituted into a medium for vision. This re- 
quired a combination of special properties. One is trans- 
parency. Though the transparency of the atmosphere is 
not perfect, its actual degree of it is an essential thing in 
the adaptation of the world for such beings as are put 


re a 


134 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


here to inhabit it. But to complete the adaptation this 
property has been united with another—its diffusive 
power for the sun’s rays. Else the light would pass right 
on, leaving vision really unprovided for. But every parti- 
cle of the atmosphere, illuminated by direct ray of the 
sun, becomes itself a new centre of emission, radiating 
light in every direction. In this way the light is diffused 
and the whole atmosphere is illuminated. Thus is pro- 
duced what we call daylight. When the sun’s rays enter 
the upper air the whole mass becomes illuminated, and the 
landscape is brightened for the eye. A beam, entering a 
chamber, fills the whole space with light. ‘ Were it not 
for the diffusive effect of the atmosphere on the sun’s rays, 
the contrast between light and shadows would be so 
greatly increased that while objects directly illuminated 
by the sun would shine so brilliantly as to dazzle the eyes, 
all surrounding objects would be in darkness, and the 
interior of our dwelling would be as dark as night.” ’ 

The atmosphere is adjusted to needful results on the 
world’s temperature. ‘Whatever may be the physical ex- 
planation of heat and its relation to light, whether or not 
both are only modes of motion and at bottom one, the 
effect is the same, and equally a necessary condition for 
the existence of organic life and for the comfort of sen- 
tient existences. ‘The atmosphere acts for diffusing heat _ 
just as it does for diffusing light. Were it not for this, 
the greatest extremes would be produced by the alterna- 
tions of day and night, probably rendering the existence 
of the higher forms of organic life impossible on the 
globe. Not only does the atmosphere diffuse the heat of 


1 Prof. J. P. Cooke’s Religion and Chemistry, p. 35, from which work 
many of the facts in this division of the subject have been drawn. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 135- 


the sun’s direct rays, and so mitigate the intensity with 
which these rays would smite, but it acts even more effect- 
ually for good in retaining on the surface the heat which 
the earth is constantly receiving. The atmosphere has 
been well compared to a mantle, enveloping the earth and 
protecting it from the chill of the celestial spaces through 
which we are rushing as the earth goes on in its orbit.” * 
In this ocean of air, diffusing and retaining the heat, we 
are kept warm. And by its incessant currents, produced 
by differing exposure to the sun’s direct rays and by the 
earth’s diurnal motion, the heat is carried and distributed 
over the globe in remoter zones and latitudes, making it 
more widely habitable, and breaking or preventing what 
would otherwise become unbearable extremes of climate. 

3. The existence of water, with its special physical 
constitution, on the earth is a manifest adaptation to the 
same ruling utilities to which the other parts of the system 
look. Composed of two gases in union, with capacity for 
vaporization and condensation at fixed temperatures that 
are adjusted to the actual heat of the atmosphere, it plays 
a part in the aggregate world-economy, without which all 
other provision would prove abortive. Its addition to the 
world system makes actual all of the other great possibil- 
ities. Being given in the proportion it actually holds to 
other parts, and vaporizing and condensing at the point it 
does and must, it is carried by the atmosphere over the 
earth and supplied to the land in showers from the sky. 
and by ceaseless circuits from fountains to oceans and 
back again the continents are kept irrigated, and refresh- 
ment is furnished to all living existence. Nature’s scheme 
_of irrigation has always, indeed, awakened admiration and 


1 Prof. J. P. Cooke’s Religion and Chemistry, pp. 46, 47. 


136 NATURAL THEOLOGY. o 


wonder. The peculiar constitution of water itself and the 
complex agencies employed in its distribution are full of 
clear evidences of beneficent counsel. Unquestionably 
they unite in serving the great ends which the other parts 
of nature make possible. - 
4. A singular and significant provision appears in the 
law by which water expands below the freezing point. 
This is exceptional. Generally bodies are expanded by 
heat and contracted by cold. Water itself follows this 
general law at all temperatures above 40°. As its surface 
becomes cooled, the chilled, and therefore heavier, portions 

- sink toward the bottom, causing a circulation till the whole 
mass has sunk to 40°. From this point it becomes lighter 
by further cooling, and the cooled portion remains on top. 
At 32° it freezes. Prof. Cooke states the result: “Then 
- comes into play still another provision in the properties of 
water. Most substances are heavier in their solid than in 
their liquid state; but ice, on the contrary, is lighter than 
water, and therefore floats on its surface. Moreover, as 
ice is a very poor conductor of heat, it serves as a protec- 
tion to the lake, so that at the depth of a few feet, at 
most, the temperature of the water during winter is never 
under 40°, although the atmosphere may continue for 
weeks below zero. If water resembled other liquids, and 
continued to contract with cold to its freezing point —if 
this exception had not been made, the whole order of nat- 
ure would have been reversed. The circulation just de- 
scribed would continue until the whole mass of water in 
the lake had fallen to the freezing point. The ice would 
then first form at the bottom, and the congelation would 
continue until the whole lake had been changed into one 
mass of solid ice. Upon such a mass the hottest summer 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 137 


would produce but little effect; for the poor conducting 
power would then prevent its melting, and instead of 
ponds and lakes we should have large masses of ice, which 
during the summer would melt on the surface to a depth 
of only a few feet. It is unnecessary to state that this 
condition of things would be utterly inconsistent with the 
existence of aquatic plants or animals, and it would be 
almost as fatal to organic life everywhere; for not only 
are all parts of the creation so indissolubly bound together 
that if one member suffers all the other members suffer 
with it, but, moreover, the soil itself would, to a certain 
extent, share in the fate of the ponds. The soil is always 
more or less saturated with water, and, under existing 
conditions in our temperate zone, the frost does not pene- 
trate to a sufficient depth to kill the roots and seeds of 
plants which are buried under it. But were water con- 
stituted like other liquids, the soil would remain frozen to 
the depth of many feet, and the only effect of the sum- 
mer’s heat would be to melt a few inches at the surface. 
It would be, perhaps, possible to cultivate some hardy an- 
nuals in such a climate, but this would be all. Trees and 
shrubs could not brave the severity of the winter. Thus, 
then, it appears that the very existence of life in these 
temperate regions of the earth depends on an apparent 
exception to a general law of nature, so slight and so 
limited in its extent that it can only be detected by the 
most refined scientific observation.” ! This is exceedingly 
expressive of a purpose. 

5. The relations of organized bodies to their assigned 
place exhibit remarkable correlations. The finality which 
appears in the inner order of organisms is carried further 


1 Religion and Chemistry, p. 149. 


138 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


in the adaptation between them and the world without. 
Somehow or other both men and the lower animals have 
the benefit of a “preéstablished harmony” provided 
between themselves and the place they come to occupy. 
This harmony is especially remarkable because the things 
found adjusted have their origins far apart and independ- 
ent. The earth existed long before man. When he came, 
it was necessary not only that his body should be inter- 
nally organized, but externally adapted to conditions 
already existing. The two sides of his existence, the 
internal and the external, have been framed to each other 
with the finest accuracy. Outside of him, for instance, is 
material capable of affording nourishment. Within is an 
elaborate provision for utilizing that material. The soil, 
showers, and sunlight produce grains and fruits, and the 
digestive and nutritive systems are exactly arranged for 
using these products. The wheat in the fieid and the mill 
for making it into flour are not more clearly correspond- 
ent facts. Each of the senses answers to specific realities 
in external nature, and is answered to by them. The 
mind itself is correlated to the material world, and all its 
powers of knowledge stand face to face with objects to be 
known. In the need of sleep, man seems to be organized 
even to the movements of the solar system, the need of 
rest being met in the suitable conditions for it. 

The various species of animals present even more striking 
adaptations to place and appointed modes of life. Man, by 
being rational and capable of clothing and sheltering him- 
self, is cosmopolitan. The lower orders are more local and 
more distinctly adjusted to their limited ranges. Each order 
is found fundamentally organized for its element and place, 
in water, on land, or in the atmosphere. The fundamental 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 139 


structure is varied in endless diversities as situations are 
changed. All these variations from the ruling plan are 
not defects, but examples of the perfection of the adaptive 
law. When an experienced naturalist knows the situa- 
tion, he can anticipate the organization, for it is found to 
follow the line of a rational accommodation. When he 
finds a particular, perhaps unique, feature of structure, he 
will look at once for its purpose, and expect to find some 
other reality to which it corresponds, marking the wisdom 
of the change. 

These truths will be found exemplified in all grades 
of life, from animalcule to mammoths. No ship on 
the sea is better fitted for its place than is the nauti- 
lus pompylius, that finds its water-tight compartments 
built in its little vessel by the very law of growth. No 
work of man can surpass the adaptation of the bird to 
the varied necessities and offices of life in the air—an 
equipped vessel for navigating the atmosphere. The 
earthworm gropes in the ground and finds full provision 
for its humble existence. The mole burrows in darkness 
through moisture and dirt, and comes out with its glossy 
fineness unsoiled. The walrus and the seal present forms 
of organization framed and compacted to the rigors of 
arctic cold and ice. 

The fitting of animals to their place often involves 
peculiar provisions accommodating them to periodic 
changes of climate. In some cases this takes the as- 
tonishing form of hibernation—a falling, when winter 
approaches, into a peculiar and deep slumber, with very 
low vitality, in which condition they live off of their own 
stored-up substance, till spring calls to the awakening 
and to fresh growths of food. In other cases, nature 


140 NATURAL THEOLOGY, 


thickens the coating of fur when the cold weather 
comes on, and thins it again when summer returns. 
These peculiar things can not be fairly explained as 
mere results of the periodic change of temperature; 
for the facts, as well as some attendant and previsive 
instincts, anticipate the change and prepare for it. It 
arises from some profounder law or provision in the 
animal’s system, whose machinery, it has been well said, 
‘““has been adjusted to the clockwork of the stars.” How- 
ever, the influence of environment in bringing about these 
adaptations is not, just here, the point of inquiry, but only 
whether in fact nature is found acting previsively for real 
ends. Such action, whatever solution of it may be offered, 
manifestly marks these arrangements in nature’s work, 

6. In the relations of the earth to the solar system, of 
which it forms a part, and of the solar system to the other 
- parts of the stellar universe, we trace the reality of an 
adjusted order in grandest scale. Modern astronomy has 
opened the universe to view in proportions that awe and 
confound the human mind. The millions on millions of 
stars that fill the sky are now recognized as suns, proba- 
bly surrounded, like our own, each by many circling 
worlds, system on system ranging away in space, one 
beyond another, with intervening distances compared with 
which the distance from the earth to the sun is but a span. 
The starry universe has grown to be virtually infinite to 
our view. But order illuminates it like light. Our earth, 
for instance, in size, weight, figure, distance, orbital and 
axial motions, is fitted into the solar system in exactest 
coaformity to the requirements of geometrical principles 
and the law of gravitation. The same is true of all the 
planets, with their satellites, in this system. In the pre- 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE, 141 


cision of their revolutions under the two mighty forces 
by which their motion is determined, their ceaseless equi- 
poise among themselves, their velocities both on axis and 
in orbit, their return in their mighty cycles being timed 
to very seconds, and in the amounts of light and heat 
furnished to them, they present an adjustment so com- 
plete and in such gigantic magnitudes as to kindle per- 
petual admiration and wonder. Astronomy finds the 
same law of order in each and all of the milliard stellar 
systems that have their place in infinite space, and in the 
relations which hold between them. Thus the universe, 
with its unnumbered groups of worlds, stretching into 
immensity, though a universe all in motion, is neverthe- 
less an established and singing harmony. 

It is impossible, in the small space allowed by the plan 
of this discussion, to present the particulars which exem- 
plify these general statements. It would require the 
details of a full treatise on astronomy. For the specific 
and impressive facts the reader must be referred to works 
of that class. 


CHEMISTRY. 


The point in chemistry bearing on the question of final 
cause is the evident constitution of the primitive elements 
for all the beneficent purposes of world-building and 
human welfare. When nature is examined to the last 
analysis of its matter, adaptation is a fact that refuses 
to disappear. The simple elements are discovered to be 
exactly fitted, not merely to produce some result by their 
chemical reactions, but precisely such results as serve to 
construct an orderly, habitable world, with provision for 
sentient enjoyment and human welfare. The properties 


142 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


found to belong to these elements mark them as prepared 
material. The adaptation of the sawed, planed, squared, 
and carved pieces of wood which the cabinet maker 
unites to make a table, or of the carefully shaped plates 
and bars and bolts and screws which the machinist forms 
into a steam engine, is only a faint suggestion of the 
wonderful adaptations which reveal themselves in the 
chemical elements. 

To make this evident in a few illustrative examples, 
we cannot do better than to abridge some explanations 
from Prof. J. P. Cooke’s Religion and Chemistry :* 

1. The great element of nature is oxygen. It forms 


one-fifth of the volume of the atmosphere. It com- ~ 


poses between one-half and one-third of the crust of the 
globe. It makes up eight-ninths of all the earth’s water, 
three-fourths of our bodies, not less than four-fifths of 
- every plant, and at least one-half of the solid rocks. 
More than twenty tons of pressure to the square inch is 
required to reduce oxygen to a liquid condition. This 
will give some idea of the chemical force by which it is 
held imprisoned in its liquid and solid forms. In a tum- 
bler of water there are no less than six cubic feet of oxy- 
gen gas, condensed to a liquid state and held there by 
the continuous action of a force which can be measured 
only by hundreds of tons of pressure. Who can esti- 
mate the silent chemical power by which this subtle 
material is fitted for building the solid and abiding foun- 
dations of the earth? 

2. It can hardly be without a purpose that oxygen, as 
well as hydrogen, is entirely destitute of both odor and 
taste. As these gases exist in a free state, and only 


1 Revised Edition of -1880 (Chas. Scribner’s Sons). 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 143 


mixed in our atmosphere, these properties would become 
manifest if they existed. But if odor and taste were to 
be qualities concerned in the choice of foods and other 
discriminations by men and animals, this negative charac- 
teristic assumes the place of a fundamental condition. 
These discriminations would seem to be possible only in 
the absence of taste and odor in the essential gases. 

3. The tendency of oxygen to diffusion is an impor- 
tant property. All gases tend to expand, and can be pre- 
vented from doing so only by being inclosed. Oxygen 
and nitrogen, the chief gases of the atmosphere, under 
this diffusive tendency, are so spread and mixed with each 
other over the whole earth that they are present in equal 
proportions everywhere. Analysis can detect no more 
than the slightest difference in composition between the 
air brought from the summit of the Alps and that from 
the deepest mine in Cornwall. Were it not for this law of 
diffusion, this tendency to spread equally everywhere in 
spite of the presence of other gases, the two gases might 
separate partially, and the atmosphere would become un- 
fitted for many of its most important functions. Take, 
for example, the function of transmitting sound. As the 
air is now constituted, there is a constancy of pitch, how- 
ever far the sound travels. Any tone once generated 
remains the same tone till it dies away. Its degree of 
loudness alters in proportion to the distance of the listener, 
but the pitch is constant. Were it not, however, for this 
law of diffusion, were the atmosphere not perfectly homoge- 
neous, and were the gases of which it consists even partially 
separated, there would have been a very different result. 
The constancy of pitch could no longer be depended upon. 
The sound, as it travelled, would vary with the ever varying 


144 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


medium through which it passed, and would arrive at the 
ear with a tone entirely different from that with which it 
started. Nor would it require any great difference in the 
medium to produce a sensible result, and to confuse all 
those delicate differences of pitch on which the whole art 
of music depends. Without this careful adjustment of 
force the magnificent creations of a Mozart or a Beetho- 
ven would be impossible. 

4, Another property of oxygen must be mentioned 
— that its temperature point for active union with other 
elements is fixed where it is, In its common state in the 
air it is passive, inert. It seems devoid of any active prop- 
erties. It is in contact with all matter; it bathes the most 
delicate animal organisms; it fills all the air passages of 
the lungs, and penetrates among the tissues. It seems 
wanting in all active or strong chemical force. But if 
the temperature be raised to red heat, what was lately so 
inert at once rushes into chemical union with other ele- 
ments, the action exhibiting what we call fire. The gentle 
breeze which was waving the corn and fanning the brows- 
ing herds becomes the next moment a consuming fire, by 
which the works of man melt away into air. The transi- 
tion from the inert to this active condition does not neces- 
sarily require the temperature of any large body of air, or 
of any combustible material to be raised to this high grade. 
There is a provision in nature by which the chemical com- 
bination, when once started, through sufficient heat at a 
single point, is sustained till the whole is consumed. All 
combustion is a process of chemical combination. This is 
attended by the evolution of heat; and in the combination 
of oxygen with any substance enough heat is generated 
at the point of actual burning to continue it to the next 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 145 


part. Different substances ignite at different temper- 
atures. Phosphorus, for instance, ignites at a temperature 
less than that of boiling water, sulphur at about 500°, 
wood at full red heat, anthracite coal at a white heat, 
while iron requires the highest heat of a blacksmith’s 
forge. The point of ignition for different bodies being 
fixed, puts the energies of this powerful agent at the com- 
mand of men. It is worthy of note that this point has 
been placed for wood, coal, and all common combustibles, 
sufficiently above the: ordinary temperature of the air to 
insure general exemption from conflagration. Spontane- 
ous combustion is thus provided against. And a check is 
put on the violence of burning, after combustion has been 
started. This is done by another provision —the energies 
of oxygen being tempered by extreme dilution. Experi- 
ments show that the slowness of combustion depends on 
the fact that in the atmosphere oxygen is mixed with a 
great mass of inert gas, and the proportion has been so 
adjusted in the scheme of creation as generally to restrain 
the awakened energies of the fire element within narrow 
limits, which man appoints. It is easy to see how a small 
change in the amount of oxygen in the air would involve 
ail organized matter in a general conflagration. 

Now this property of oxygen, in connection with its 
fixed relative amount, prepares it for all the beneficent 
uses it serves, not only in its passive, quiet state, but in its 
active energies, giving so-called “fire” to man, essential 
both to common daily life and to all the industries, sci- 
ences, arts,and culture by which the race rises into dignity 
and power. Fire is one of the most valuable servants of 
mankind; it is the great source of artificial heat and light. 


In the steam engine it is the apparent origin of that power 
10 


146 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


which animates the commerce and the industry of the ciy- 
ilized world. Under its influence iron becomes plastic; the 
ores give up their metallic treasures. It is the agent of 
all the arts. In the light of modern science all this utility 
comes from the peculiar capacities of oxygen. The adap- 
tations are too striking to be overlooked, and too elaborate 
and adjusted to be counted only happenings. Immeas- 
urable power is found. locked up in perfect mildness, and 
submitted to the service of man. This strongest of the 
chemical elements, although a permanent gas, forms more 
than one-half of the solid crust of the earth, and is en- 
dowed with such mighty affinities that it is retained se- 
curely by them in its solid state, yet it is, in the atmosphere, 
so shorn of its energies as not to singe the down of the 
gossamer, and still so tempered that its powers may be 
evoked at the will of man and made subservient to his 
wants. 

5. When oxygen unites with the elements of wood, 
coal, or other combustible matter, two chief products are 
set free: carbonic dioxide gas and aqueous vapor. These 
products are colorless and transparent, without odor or 
taste. They escape from the burning wood, ascend the 
chimney, and pass off into the general atmosphere. If 
the chemist takes the smoke and weighs it, he finds that 
it weighs more than the burnt wood—a weight equal to 
that of the wood and of the air consumed in the burning. 
Now, provision is made in nature by which this smoke is 
worked up again into new combinations. A new cycle of 
changes is begun where the flame ends. The carbonic 
dioxide and the aqueous vapor, after roving at liberty for 
awhile, are absorbed by the leaves of trees and the blades 
of grass, and under the influence of the sun-rays, help to 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 147 


form new wood and grow crops for the use of man. 
Everything appears to be ordered so as to run in channels 
of economic utility. The atmosphere is kept pure, nothing 
is iost, and nature keeps up a beneficent order. 

6. The original adaptation of oxygen for world- 
building is strikingly shown by the largeness of its office 
in forming the body of the earth. We must look at it 
not only in its place and relations in the atmosphere, 
fitting it as the medium for life and breathing, and fur- 
nishing fire and all its dependent utilities of heat and 
combustion, but in producing materials for building our 
globe. In its earlier stages, at least, the making of the 
world seems to have been a process of burning, and its 
foundations were laid in flames. Examining the matter 
of which the earth is made, we find a great many sub- 
stances, all composed of about seventy so-called chemical 
elements; that is, substances considered as simple, because 
not yet, at least, found capable of being decomposed. 
Accepting oxygen as the supporter of combustion, the 
great mass of the remaining elements are combustible; 
that is, under certain conditions they combine rapidly with 
oxygen, evolving light and heat. Carbon is an element, 
phosphorus is an element; so is iron, sulphur, and each of 
the other metals. Out of these, combined with oxygen, 
the world is built, oxygen being the largest element. 
Oxygen unites with calcium, forming lime, and lime rocks, 
under various modifications, constitute a large part of the 
earth’s crust. It unites with silicon, forming silica, the 
very hard white solid appearing in the varieties of stone 
known as quartz, rock crystal, agate, jasper, chalcedony, 
opal, and others. Over one-half of the weight of each of 
these is oxygen. In union with aluminum it forms a com- 


148 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


pound called alumina, a substance out of which nature 
makes sapphires and rubies, and which, when united with 
silica and water, furnishes us with clay. With magnesium 
it forms magnesia, and this in union with silica makes, 
according to the proportions, hornblende or augite, two 
minerals which abound in many varieties of rock. Add 
water to the composition, and we get also serpentine or 
soapstone, with many other allied mineral species. Potas- 
sum with oxygen turns to potash. Melt potash, lime, and 
silicious earth together, and we have glass. Unite potash, — 
silica, and alumina, and we get feldspar; combine them in 
different proportions, and we have mica; in other propor- 
tions, garnet. Lastly, mix quartz and feldspar together 
with mica or hornblende, in an indiscriminate jumble, 
and we have the several varieties of the granite rock. 
Thus by union of oxygen with a few other elements, 
under what is known as the process of burning, the mate- 
rials are formed which, by further combinations, produce 
all the varieties of the earth’s rocks and soils. More than 
one-half of the whole consists of oxygen. Silicon forms 
about one-fourth. Other elements enter in smaller pro- 
portions. Evidently, therefore, so far as our knowledge 
extends, oxygen, silicon, carbon, together with a few 
metals, have been the chief building materials in making 
the world, and oxygen has been, so to speak, the universal 
cement by which the various elements have been bound 
together in the grand and diversified whole. 

We might go on to collect from reliable chemical 
authorities hundreds of such examples, showing adaptation 
in the elementary matter of the world. The properties of 
hydrogen are only less significant than those of oxygen. 
Facts of definite utility for world structure come into view 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 149 


all through the work of chemistry. They fill the mind 
with wonder, and many of them read like romance when 
Science in her soberest moods sets them before us. Es- 
pecially is this so when molecular physics, by means of the 
spectrum, shows the elements to be the same in distant 
worlds and on the earth, whether procured from water 
or coal of our planet or from meteoric iron, whether in 
the light of a lamp or coming from the sun or Sirius or 
Arcturus, making it thus exceedingly probable that the 
molecules have had a common origin. 

We mention, however, only one thing more, especially 
deserving of notice both because it is fundamental in the 
whole system of chemistry, and because of its bearing on 
the point which we wish to emphasize. This is the “law 
of definite proportions,” or equivalents, in the union of 
the various elements in chemical reactions. When any 
two of these elements unite to form a compound 
body, the proportions in which they combine are not 
decided by chance. We cannot unite them in any 
proportions we may please. They are fixed in each 
case according to an unvarying law; and the relative 
amount required seems to be weighed out by nature in her 
delicate scales with an exactness which no art can attain. 
Works on chemistry usually give tables showing the 
numerical value or “atomic weight” for each element, 
Whenever the elements unite with each other, it is found 
to be in the exact proportions indicated by these numbers, 
or else in some multiple of these proportions. These 
values are called “atomic weights,” because according to 
the theory of modern chemistry they represent the relative 
weights of the ultimate atoms of the elements. If this 
be the case, it is evident that when the atoms group 


150 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


themselves together to form the molecules of various sub- 
stances, the elements must combine by whole atoms. The 
law of proportions, therefore, seems to point back to 
definite and unvarying properties in the assumed atoms 
themselves, by which they are adapted to produce what 
we call the elements, or, rather, the molecules of which 
these elements consist. 

The adaptive existence and action thus begin not only 
back of organisms and chemical compounds, but back of 
the elements themselves. The very atoms contain the 
law. The principle of finality acts from the beginning. 
The elementary molecules are the ultimate things that 
science can directly examine in its retrogressive analysis, 
and thus this testimony of chemistry as to the marks of 
adaptation which they show is of exceeding value. Sci- 
ence will hardly be able to eliminate from nature what is 
found inhering in the molecules. Prof. Cooke, from whose 
able work we have drawn most of the facts recited on this 
point, well concludes: “The great argument of Natural 
Theology rests on a basis which no present theories of 
development can touch. I have endeavored to show 
that there is abundant evidence of design even in the 
properties of the chemical elements, the stones of 
nature’s edifice. The footprints of the Creator are no- 
where more plainly visible than on that very matter which 
the materialists so vainly worship.” It is not Prof. 
Cooke alone who assures us of this fact. He is simply 
one in the line of competent witnesses to it. Probably no 
philosopher of recent times was better acquainted with 
the interior realities of nature than Sir John Herschel, and 
he has put his testimony concerning these elementary 
molecules in the striking and memorable declaration that 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 151 


they possessed all the characteristics of “manufactured 
articles.” Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell, an authority second to 
none in experimental physics, is led by his minute research 
to the same conclusion: “It is well known that living 
beings may be grouped into a certain number of species, 
defined with more or less precision, and that it is difficult 
or impossible to find a series of individuals forming the 
links of a continuous chain between one species and 
another. In the case of living beings, however, the gen- 
eration of individuals is always going on, each individual 
differing more or less from its parents. Each individual, 
during its whole life, is undergoing modification, and it 
either survives and propagates its species, or dies early, 
according as it is more or less adapted to the circumstances 
of its environment. Hence, it has been found possible to 
frame a theory of the distribution of organisms into spe- 
cies by means of generation, variation, and discriminative: 
destruction. But a theory of evolution of this kind can- 
not be applied to the case of molecules, for the individual 
molecules neither are born nor die, they have neither 
parents nor offspring, and so far from being modified by 
their environment, we find that two molecules of the same 
kind, say of hydrogen, have the same properties, though 
one has been compounded with carbon and buried in the 
earth as coal for untold ages, while the other has been 
‘occluded’ in the iron of a meteorite, and after unknown 
wanderings in the heavens has at last fallen into the hands 
of some terrestrial chemist. The process by which the 
molecules become distributed into distinct species is not 
one of which we know any instances going on at present,. 
or of which we have as yet been able to form any mental 
representation. If we suppose that the molecules known. 


152 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


to us are built up each of some moderate number of atoms, 
these atoms being all of them exactly alike, then we may 
attribute the limited number of molecular species to the 
limited number of ways in which the primitive atoms may 
be combined so as to form a permanent system. But 
though this hypothesis gets rid of the difficulty of aecount- 
ing for the independent origin of different species of mol- 
ecules, it merely transfers the difficulty from the known 
molecules to the primitive atoms. How did the atoms 
come to be all alike in those properties which are in them- 
selves capable of assuming any value?... We have 
seen that the very different circumstances in which differ- 
ent molecules of the same kind have been placed have not, 
even in the course of many ages, produced any apprecia- 
ble difference in the value of these constants. If, then, the 
various processes of nature to which these molecules have 
been subjected since the world began have not been able 
in ali that time to produce any appreciable difference be- 
tween the constants of one molecule and those of another, 
we are forced to conclude that it is not to the operation of 
any of these processes that the uniformity of the constant 
is due. The formation of the molecule is, therefore, an 
event not belonging to that order of nature under which 
we live. It is an operation of a kind which is not, so far 
as we are aware, going on in the earth or in the sun or the 
stars, either now or since these bodies began to be formed. 
It must be referred to the epoch, not of the formation of 
the earth or of the solar system, but of the establishment 
of the existing order of nature, and till not only these 
worlds and systems, but the very order of nature itself is 
dissolved, we have no reason to expect the occurrence of 
any operation of a similar kind. . . . Whether or not the 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 153 


conception of a multitude of beings existing from all 
eternity is in itself self-contradictory, the conception 
becomes palpably absurd when we attribute a relation of 
quantitative equality to all these beings. We are then 
forced to look beyond them to some common cause or 
common origin to explain why this singular relation of 
equality exists, rather than any one of the infinite number 
of possible relations of inequality. 

“Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of 
matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the 
utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have 
admitted that, because matter cannot be eternal and self- 
existent, it must have been created. It is only when we 
contemplate not matter in itself, but the form in which it 
actually exists, that our mind finds something on which it 
ean lay hold. That matter, as such, should have certain 
fundamental properties, that it should have a continuous 
existence in space and time; that all action should be 
between two portions of matter, and so on, are truths 
which may, for aught we know, be of the kind which 
metaphysicians call necessary. We may use our knowl- 
edge of such truths for purposes of deduction, but we 
have no data for speculating on their origin. 

“But the equality of the constants of the molecules is 
a fact of a very different order. It arises from a particu- 
lar distribution of matter, a collocation, to use the ex- 
pression of Dr. Chalmers, of things which we have no 
difficulty in imagining to have been arranged otherwise. 
But many of the ordinary instances of collocation are 
adjustments of constants, which are not only arbitrary in 
their own nature, but in which variations actually occur; 
and when it is pointed out that these adjustments are 


154 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


beneficial to living beings, and are therefore instances of 
benevolent design, it is replied that those variations 
which are not conducive to the growth and multiplication 
of living beings tend to their destruction, and to the 
removal thereby of the evidence of any adjustment not 
beneficial. The constitution of an atom, however, is such 
as to render it, so far as we can judge, independent of all 
the dangers arising from the struggle for existence. 
Plausible reasons may, no doubt, be assigned for beliey- 
ing that if the constants had varied from atom to atom 
through any sensible range, the bodies formed by aggre- 
gates of such atoms would not have been so well fitted 
for the construction of the world as the bodies which 
actually exist. But as we have no experience of bodies 
formed of such variable atoms this must remain a bare 
conjecture. 

“ Atoms have been compared by Sir J. Herschel to 
manufactured articles, on account of their uniformity. 
The uniformity of manufactured articles may be traced 
to very different motives on the part of the manufacturer. 
. . . There are three kinds of usefulness in manufactured 
articles : cheapness, serviceableness, and quantitative ac- 
curacy. Which of these was present to the mind of Sir 
J. Herschel we cannot now positively affirm, but it was at 
least as likely to have been the last as the first, though it 
seems more probable that he meant to assert that a num- 
ber of exactly similar things cannot be each of them 
eternal and self-existent, and must therefore have been 
made, and that he used the phrase ‘manufactured ar- 
ticle’ to suggest the idea of their being made in great 


numbers.”’* 


1“ Atom,” in Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition. 


~ 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 155 


LIFE. 


The term “life” is a name given to an unknown force 
productive of well known and unquestionable phenomena. 
What it is per se we know not. It is something different 
from everything not designated by the term itself. Be- 
tween living and dead matter there is a chasm across 
which science has as yet shown no bridge. It has found 
no life not originating from previous life. Spontaneous 
generation is as yet unknown. ; 

The force we call life has several clear and peculiar 
characteristics. One is its superiority te mere mechan- 
ism. It is itself the force which determines the mechani- 
cal relations and combinations of atoms, molecules, cells, 
and tissues, resulting in organs and organisms with their 
functions. The life force, whatever it is, works with the 
elementary particles, arranging them, accumulating them, 
and evolving them in what we call growth. It is allowa- 
ble, indeed, if the mechanical view of nature is to 
furnish our terminology, to call these combinations 
“mechanical,” as the result of molecular collocations and 
interactions, or modes of motion. But all attempted 
explanations of life as mere mechanism are radically 
vicious by treating mechanism as the cause of itself, 
or in other words, shutting out of view the necessary 
demands of the law of causation. Life creates organs 
for itself, transforming amorphous masses into veritable 
constructions, of skilful codrdination and adaptation. It 
uses the principle of mechanism and subordinates it to its 
own ends. 

Another characteristic is its control of the simply chem- 
ical forces, The nature of chemical affinity has been made 


—_ 


156 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


evident in treating of the combinations of oxygen with 
other elements. That force plainly falls short of what is 
known as vitality, or life. No mere chemical interaction 
has ever been known to produce life or result in it. Life 
does not act according to chemical formula, but crosses 
them, and bends to its own uses the energies which these 
formule measure. This force seizes the chemical elements 
and directs them in lines of movement not only impossi- 
ble to chemical action, but reversing it. It builds up or- 
ganisms and keeps them in action according to its own 
laws. When, however, the vital force ceases, the chemi- 
cal forces come again into ruling sway, and pull down 
what life built up. They attack the dead body or tree 
and reduce it to dust. The organic being struggles for 
existence, and lives only because the vital principle holds 
the physical forces in abeyance and makes them sources 
of support. In a certain sense it is the physical forces 
that build up all organic structures. Atheistie scientists 
are never done telling us this. But these physical forces 
serve this purpose only because, for the time, they are 
dominated by a superior force. The moment vitality is 
gone they tear down the body which they were made to 
construct. In no just sense can the chemical forces, any 
more than the mechanical, be held to be the same as the 
vital, as they thus stand, in some degree, at least, in antag- 
onistic relation. In the decay of wood and of animal 
matter the chemical process, in reality, is the same as 
burning — an oxidation of the substances. When the al- 
buminous matter is large, as in animals, the decay goes on 
rapidly. ‘Life, during its whole existence, is an untiring 
builder, repairing the waste of the body; the oxygen of 
the atmosphere is a fell destroyer.” When at last the 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 15? 


builder ceases, the chemical forces, acting alone, crumble 
the organism into dust. This life force is the latest born, 
so far as, from the geologic pages, we can read the birth 
periods of the forces that appear in nature, and the time 
may come when it may vanish from our globe and leave 
the chemical and physical forces victor on the field. But 
for the present, it exists as a superior form of force, irre- 
ducible to the terms of any other, and unaccountable by 
mere evolution of the physical and chemical forces. 

Final cause is unquestionable in the actings of this 
force. Though life appears in an innumerable variety of 
forms, wherever found it moves with discriminative precis- 
ion to distinct and determinate ends under laws operating 
from the initial or causal point. Each distinguishable 
species exhibits its own kind in continuous succession, 
showing an adjusted and fixed constitution. However 
alike the initial form of different species may look at the 
start, or in inchoate stages, the line of movement never 
falls into confusion, or issues in a species not its own. 
The goal of the evolution, even in the feeblest germs, is so 
firmly predetermined as to bend to its own purpose the 
encountered action of all the lower forces. It is true, 
that it is only after life has issued in a well defined organ- 
ism, that the end becomes clearly perceptible and impres- 
sive to the observer. In amorphous aggregations of living 
“protoplasm,” or the lowest forms of organization, and in 
the simple cells and tissues of the earliest stages of 
growth in even the most highly organized species, the se- 
cret of the wonderful adaptation, with its provided differ- 
entiation into the minutest features of the parent species, 
is not yet disclosed. But when the initial cells and form- 
ing tissues are unfolded into organs, and these correlated 


158 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


into complete beings, then it becomes impressively sure 
that the germs were not fortuitous complications, but 
carried from the start a purpose enstamped on their life 
force and molecular structure. The potency and law of 
all that comes out of them must be in them from their be- 
ginning —a distinct correlation to future, discriminated, 
and intelligent ends. 

A few illustrations will suffice to explain and certify 
this fact. Take, for instance, the egg of a bird. Its con- 
tents present only a yolk surrounded by the albumen, or 
white. To the unaided eye they appear only as two homoge- 
neous semi-fluid masses of matter. The microscope reveals 
but little more. At best it discloses no trace of organs, or 
anything suggestive of the articulated structure into 
which it is to be formed. But when the egg is subjected, 
for a certain time, to the proper degree of warmth, either 
by the brooding of the mother bird or by artificial heat, 
there comes forth from that egg a bird perfect in all its 
parts. The life force, whatever it may be, as an artificer, 
proceeding on a plan of rational and systematic codrdina- 
tion of means to ends, and of beginnings to specialized 
results, has not only marshalled the molecules and con- 
structed a bony framework and organs of circulation, di- 
gestion, respiration, of sight, hearing, taste, and smell, and 
manufactured, of suitable tissues, muscles and nerves of 
sensation and motion, but has united all these organs and 
parts, with their respective functions, into a symmetri- 
cally formed living bird. The process may be watched 
from day to day, and from hour to hour, and every step 
may be traced from the earliest segregation of the yolk, 
and the faint outline of a living form up to the completion 
of the work. That the result is already determined in the 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 159 


initial life of the egg is evident from the adaptive forecast 
with which the force in the egg of each species selects its 
appropriate form of structure out of numberless possible 
ones, and from the discriminated uniformity and certainty 
with which it shapes all the material into that form. For 
there are many species or kinds of life, distinguished by char- 
acteristics that run through their whole existence and rule 
in the process which forms each individual. Though the 
contents of a hundred different kinds of eggs present to 
the eye of science no perceptible difference in substance 
or composition, yet the life germ of each builds after its 
own kind. That of the eagle builds only an eagle. That 
of the robin constructs a robin. In every case the end is 
determined at the beginning, and the provision seeks and 
effects the reproduction of the specific form through a long 
eclectic process that adjusts with the finest precision every 
bone and organ and muscle and nerve and feather of the 
complex organism to the predetermined model required by 
the interests of the animal. 

As another instance, we may take an acorn dropped 
from the oak. The question is: Does it reveal a real pro- 
vision for an end? The acorn looks like only a little dull 
matter, but the law for the oak of a century’s subsequent 
growth is written effectively in its life force and organiza- 
tion. It contains a distinct provision for a purpose already 
fixed and measured. Placed under right conditions of soil, 
moisture, and heat, it proceeds to show the design wrapped 
up and hidden in its living and wisely adapted germ. It 
is potentially all that comes out of it. Over against all 
confusing forces of nature and man, roots and trunk and 
boughs and branches have all been settled in the acorn as 
certainly as the keeping of time is settled in the structure 


160 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


of a watch, or the scanning of the heavens has been pro- 
vided for in the make-up of the telescope. In all the 
manifold kinds of plant life each seed is predetermined 
for the product after its kind. Though the seed is so 
small as to be almost microscopic, the life presses right on 
across the direction of all known chemistries. It takes up 
the physical forces, and bends and utilizes them to a dis- 
tinct result far above the possibilities of dead matter. 

There is a further fact included here, of very clear and 
positive significance —the production of the seed itself. 
It must strike every thoughtful mind as a wonderful fact, 
that, in addition to this development from seeds, the life- 
processes in every tree and flower, and indeed in all organic 
nature, go right on and prepare seed for future growths, 
year after year. This is a distinct and striking pre- 
arrangement for the future. We know of no @ priori ne- 
cessity in the nature of atoms or molecules, or of living 
matter, why the dying plant or tree should provide a 
specialized structure for beginning another, or why the 
vegetation of one summer should take account for vegeta- 
tion in the next. That it does so, however, is the very 
fact of nature’s order. And the wisdom of the order is as 
clear as is its adaptive relation of means to ends. 

The whole realm of organic nature teems with the 
industries of this life force. The earth is the theatre of 
their crowded activity. They are omnipresent and cease- 
less. They move forward in countless lines of systematic 
productive work. They are adjusted to an intelligent or- 
der, and to rational and benevolent ends. They clothe the 
ground with the green and glory of millions of plants and 
flowers and useful products. They manufacture food for 
the myriads of sentient creatures that fill the earth and 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE, 161 


air. Could our ears catch the sound, they would be filled 
with the din of the countless and incessant processes, 
selecting the chemical elements from the air and water, 
pumping the saps up the veins, and elaborating the appro- 
priate tissues of wood and leaf and flower and seed. In 
a higher range the life force populates the earth with 
animals possessed of organizations adapted to their place 
and prepared for an existence of enjoyment. In this 
force the system of nature is carried forward and upward 
into the higher grades which exhibit ends worthy of the 
grand preparation in the long development of the in- 
organic realm. The advent of life, with its clear acting 
for ends, reveals final cause for all that preceded it, and 
that would otherwise have failed to suggest the relation. 
Life makes all nature luminous with purposive action. In 
myriad ways and modes it is found correlated, not only to 
continuance of existence, but to the interests of beings 
capable of enjoyment and happiness. So impressive is the 
intelligence with which its force is made to act, so rich in 
wise adaptations are the products of its industry, so multi- 
plied are its omnipresent wonders, that the observant mind 
has always and everywhere recognized it as carrying on 
and accomplishing real purposes; and the forms of speech 
in every land have been shaped to this truth. It is not to 
be wondered at that when Von Hartmann starts out with an 
atheistic view of the world, he must, in writing a philoso- 
phy of “the Unconscious,” smuggle in some conception 
of intelligence under this contradictory term, in order to 
meet the necessity, still forced on the reason, of postu- 
lating some intelligent cause for these irreducible facts of 
finality. Rudolf Schmid well says: “One of the most 


remarkable philosophic testimonies for the right of tele-- 
11 


162 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


ology is the philosophic system of Eduard Von Hartmann, 
who, although he calls his absolute the Unconscious, 
ascribes to it an unconscious intelligence and an uncon- 
scious will, and makes the observation and acknowledg- 
ment of designs and ends, which he sees in the whole 
realm of the world of phenomena, an essential part of his 
entire system.” ' 

It is to be distinctly observed that this conclusion is 
not dependent on any particular theory of life. Whether 
life be held to be a result of organization, or itself the 
organizing energy —as it certainly shows itself to be in 
its actual processes and work —will make no difference. 
Should the extremest suggestion offered by the “mechan- 
ical theory” of nature be taken as scientific truth, that 
what we call life is due to a special mode of motion or an 
inter-relation of atoms or molecules, and that there is 
really no essential difference between the so-called living 
and dead worlds, the facts of life would still remain the 
same, so far as finality is concerned. Should it be ex- 
plained —though at present there is no prospect of its 
being so explained —from the mere mechanism of atoms, 
still the special determination, by its action, of atomic, 
molecular, and cellular structures to millions of distinet 
and self-perpetuating forms of organization, in which 
complex parts are rationally correlated to each other and 
to useful and beneficent ends, remains a fact. Out of a 
few simple elements this inscrutable force forms the whole 
world of organized existences in such clear subjection to 
orderly thought that orderly thought easily traces it out 
and exhibits it in the wonderful classifications of scientific 
‘systems. Final cause is not refuted by calling the force 


1 The Theories of Darwin, p. 176. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 163 


“mechanical,” especially so in view of the fact that the 
very conception of mechanism is primarily formed from the 
processes of human industry in which intention controls. 
The very roots of the concept “mechanical” stand in, as 
they arose out of, teleological soil. Indeed, man knows of 
no reality which he can positively affirm to be outside of 
all relation of means and ends and undetermined by this 
relation, from which to form a concept of mechanism that 
shall positively bar out finality. As we know mechanism, 
it is the product of design, however destitute of conscious 
intelligence itself may be. And so, even a mechanical 
explanation of life is no disproof of design, and the 
proper proofs of finality in it would remain unimpaired. 


MIND. 


In psychology, in which we reach the highest point in 
the study of finite existences, we reach also the most un- 
questionable facts of finality. Should men deny final 
causes in each and all of the phenomena of creation 
below this, they cannot deny it here. For besides the 
indubitable adaptations in the different powers of the 
human mind to one another and all their great functions 
connecting its existence with the outer world, there is a 
conscious actual exercise of final cause by men every day 
and hour of their waking lives. Working with aims is 
the great characteristic of the mental world. There are 
three classes of facts to be noticed in this relation. 

1. Mind is always acting with consciousness of pur- 
poses. The grandest fact in human consciousness, in 
daily life, in the world’s history, is intentional action, pur- 
suit and accomplishment of ends. Whatever explanation 
may be made of the nature of mind, whether considered 


164 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


a different entity from matter, as all the evidence shows 
it to be, or looked upon, in materialistic view, as only a 
resultant of material organization, two facts remain, 
First, that the mind is a begun existence. Thus its exist- 
ence comes under the law of causation, and all that is in 
it and all that its action exhibits must be referred to an 
adequate producing cause. Secondly, that the mind itself 
acts as a final cause, exhibiting phenomena in which 
means are used for predetermined ends. If, therefore, on 
the one hand, mind is, as we have every reason to believe 
it to be, a different entity from matter, we are face to 
face with the fact of an originated existence or agent act- 
ually set, somehow, by its cause, to the function of act- 
ing for ends. If, on the other hand, we should for argu- 
ment’s sake consent to the materialist’s assertion that 
what we call mind is a mere product or manifestation of 
organized molecules, then right here at the summit of 
nature, nature pure and simple is acting for ends. For, 
of this acting in fact every man is conscious, The effect 
of the materialist’s scheme, in destroying the substantial 
difference between mind and matter and abolishing free- 
dom, is to reduce mind to mere physics. It thus throws 
all the purposive action of man into the domain of simple 
nature. It cannot, however, deny the reality of such 
purposive action, without denying the witness of con- 
sciousness, and so overthrowing the foundations of all 
knowledge. Thus, in either case, we have in the human 
mind an originated or begun existence, an existence be- 
longing to the great aggregate of nature, that exhibits the 
reality of the action of final cause in the world. 

In view of these facts one is amazed at the fatuity of 
the Positive Philosophy, and of those who have fallen 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 165 


into its shallow absurdity of undertaking to affirm that 
final cause can nowhere be found, and the search after it 
is illusory. Mr. J. S. Mill tells us that final causes are 
“unknown and inscrutable.” Prof. Huxley joins in 
denouncing “the fruitless search after final causes” and 
“those hardy teleologists who are ready to break through 
all the laws of physics in chase of their favorite will-o- 
the-wisp.” It is strange indeed that this materialistic 
philosophy, which seeks to wipe out the distinction be- 
tween mind and matter, has been unable to find what 
every man is conscious of every day and hour of his wak- 
ing life. Every sane person is thoroughly aware that, 
with a few insignificant exceptions due to weariness or 
caprice, he never acts, in either great or trifling affairs, 
without definitely formed purposes. He is always seek- 
ing ends. He would take it as an insult to be charged 
with living or acting below the rational grade. Even in 
writing denials of final cause, men are exhibiting its 
action. They act teleologically while they are writing 
down teleology. 

Probably, however, only anti-teleologists of the extreme 
materialistic school mean to deny real final cause in the 
activity of our minds, counting it an illusive resultant of 
the mechanism of molecules. Others admit that man 
forms and accomplishes real purposes, and that the prod- 
ucts of the whole world of human industry are products 
of design. They deny design only for the products of 
nature, as distinguished from the products of man’s indus- 
try. They find in the universe no pursuit of ends but 
that of which man is the author. And they seem to 
assume that for the acting for ends of which man is con- 
scious, and for all the results of this action, we need not 


166 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


go back of the human mind itself —that we may look 
upon the mind as the sole and absolute author of this 
kind of activity, and that somehow or other it is all 
explained in man’s own personality and freedom. But 
to show the utter insufficiency of this explanation, and to 
prove that the admission of human design requires the 
admission of more, it is enough to recall the fact that man 
himself, being an originated being, this capacity or fune- 
tion of his mind is itself an adaptation to ends. All the 
adaptations that he originates are potentially included and 
provided for in the powers and faculties of his mental 
constitution. His conscious action as a final cause, and 
the necessity so to act, are simply two sides of one great 
reality in his psychical life. Not only is action for ends 
by men the most imposing and imperial fact in the world, 
filling the earth with the tremendous energies which form 
civilizations and make histories, but it is a necessity which 
arises out of this very constitution given to mind. This 
necessity is In no way contradictory to man’s real freedom. 
For although he possesses freedom, yet his freedom con- 
sists only in choosing among ends, not in any possibility 
of acting without ends. It is impossible for man to escape 
the law of this kind of action. If he even attempts to 
refuse to pursue ends, his very attempt is the action and 
exhibition of a purpose. The mind is not only adapted to 
act for finality, but finality is the very law of its constitu- 
tion. It is not only a possibility of his freedom, but a 
necessity in his freedom. The constitution of the mind, 
therefore, itself embodies the principle and fact of finality. 
As nature here compels action for ends, all such action 
belongs to nature’s constitution. 

2. The wonderful adaptation of the mind’s powers to 


“ay =! 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 167 


one amother in the unity of its conscious existence, and of 
each and all to the aggregate life to which man’s bodily 
organization fits him, has always arrested the interest and 
awakened the admiration of thoughtful students of psy- 
chology. In the great fundamental powers of the mind, 
for instance, known as “the intellect,” “the sensibility,” 
and “the will,” in which, in orderly dependent capacity, 
we know, we feel, we will, there is a clear adjustment to 
the end of constituting an intelligent, self-determining 
personal being. In this organization of powers in the 
unity of a psychical existence, there is created the 
highest form of finite being of which we have any concep- 
tion. There can be no question that these great powers, 
intellect, sensibility, and will, rise one above another in 
adaptations marvellously fitted to each other, and with 
functions*all looking forward to the great end of person- 
ality. The finest adaptations in physical structures are 
coarse and bungling compared with the fineness of the 
correlation of these powers. 

In the subdivisions, also, of the intellectual power, the 
sense-perception, the memory and imagination, the fac- 
ulties of discursive and intuitional thought, the same 
principle of adaptive order holds. Each faculty presents 
in itself a wonderful provision for a function useful to 
man; and their adjustment to each other, in relations of 
interdependence and codperation, ‘taking up and com- 
pleting each other’s processes and products in rational 
results, carry up the human constitution to the high rank 
of an intelligent, self-determining, moral being. Is it pos- 
sible to look upon this personality, with its harmony and 
consistency of co-acting powers, as the result of chance? 
Or upon this intelligence as the product ‘of non-intelligent 


168 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


forces? Or upon this liberty as the development of neces- 
sity? Is the constitution of mind, whose imperial charac- 
teristic is to act for ends, itself void of a provided adapta- 
tion to the great function it actually fulfils? The fact 
cannot be rationally thus viewed. Rather, all the mind’s 
powers reveal themselves, in actual consciousness, as being 
themselves predetermined for the exhibition of that great 
function. 

But the mental constitution is suited also to the capaci- 
ties of the bodily organization. This is a truth of pro- 
founder significance than is generally recognized. The 
physical organism is just such as the mind’s faculties 
require to give them full play and exercise. The human 
mind and body are plainly for each other. It is a shallow 
misconception that represents matter as intrinsically evil 
and the body as a clog or prison unsuited to*the soul’s 
powers. So accurately does man’s own body — not that 
of an animal — answer the soul’s needs as an instrument 
in every organ and fibre, that it looks as if the soul had 
organized and moulded it all to its own wants and capa- 
bilities. The bodily distinctions of man as separating him 
from the rest of the animal world, are found to correspond 
in exactest degree to the mental distinctions that separate 
him from them. If man is a personality, with an outlook, 
in free intelligence, into possibilities beyond mere animal 
life, his body is just as clearly an organ of such personality. 
If the human mind were furnished with only an animal’s 
body, even that of the anthropoid apes, said to be so simi- 
lar to man’s organization, such body would indeed be 
a hindrance, an incapacitating bondage, nullifying the 
mind’s powers and reducing them to helplessness, For 
instance, with only an ape’s hind feet for feet, and an 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 169 


ape’s fore feet for hands, the human mind would be help- 
less before all the great tasks of life, its mechanical indus- 
tries would be impossible, civilizations would be swept 
away, and the scientific faculties buried as in a tomb. 
The mind’s faculties would have no adequate instruments 
with which to move forth into developed power and fruits. 
On the other hand, were an animal, even the highest below 
man, furnished with a man’s mind, the gift would be worse 
than in vain. But man’s nature presents no such unad- 
justed conjunction of mental and physical constitutions, 
in which the bodily organ is a useless instrument, or the 
mind a mighty and grand capacity disabled and made 
prisoner in an unfit structure. It presents the happy 
adaptation in which mind and its organ are manifestly 
made for each other. The aggregate life for which man’s 
bodily organization prepares him is just the life which the 
mind’s lofty capacities and powers can employ, utilize, and 
bring into full fruitage of good. 

3. The laws of pure thought, i.e., the established and 
necessary modes and products of our rational faculties, are 
found to tally, in most impressive accuracy, with the 
realities found in the universe around us. Truth, as 
found in the mind’s own action, is found to be truth in the 
great cosmos without. Thus our knowledge is real knowl- 
edge. For it is of the very essence of knowledge that it 
knows a reality. Otherwise it is not knowledge. And 
the point to be noticed is that our pure thought-processes, 
starting from the phenomena of experience, but going far 
beyond them, guided by the intuitions of the reason, reach 
necessary conclusions which are found to express, not fic- 
tions, but great realities long before actualized in the 
plan and facts of the universe. 


170 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


To explain this a few facts in psychology must be re- 
called: (1). The mind gains its earliest knowledge through 
the powers of sense-perception and consciousness. These 
furnish a knowledge of material things and of psychical 
acts. (2) By the power of representation, in which the 
mind recalls and reknows the objects of presentative 
knowledge, in the forms of memory and imagination, it 
accumulates and commands its acquisitions of empirical 
knowledge for the use of the thought-power. (3) The 
powers of thought now proceed, through acts of judg- 
ment, analysis, comparison, and synthesis, to form con- 
cepts or general notions. In these the relations of mate- 
rial and psychical phenomena are generalized in forms of 
thought. Guided by certain @ priori relations and: prin- 
ciples, intuitively evident, such as the relations of sub- 
stance and attribute, cause and effect, time and space, 
means and end, the thought-power develops the logical 
processes of inductive and deductive reasoning. It de- 
termines the laws of logic, which, indeed, are but the 
fixed and necessary principles and processes of thinking. 
Especially out of the time and space relations, this power 
develops the mathematical concepts of number and mag- 
nitude and the axioms and truths of mathematical reason- 
ing and conclusion. Under its own necessary and uni- 
versal laws thought thus constructs the entire science of 
pure mathematics. It determines relations that are nec- 
essarily and forever true in pure thought. ~It is in the 
applications of mathematical truth to the facts of the 
physical universe that the adaptations in the constitution 
of the mind become most conspicuously manifest. 

To a full understanding of this a few other things 
must be remembered. First, that the idea of number, 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. nyt 


which, along with symmetry, is inherent in the mind, is 
developed, not from without, but from within. It arises 
when in consciousness we are aware of psychical acts or 
states of greater or less continuance, in connection with 
the continuing identity of the ego as the conscious agent, 
the succession or repetition of these psychical acts becom- 
ing the occasion of the idea of time as their necessary 
condition. Occurring once, twice, or oftener, they intro- 
duce the conception of number, out of which, as a time- 
relation, all arithmetical and algebraic mathematics are 
developed. These, therefore, are a product of the mind’s 
own creative power, under its own subjective and nec- 
essary laws of thought. “Pure arithmetic and algebra 
deal only with ideal concepts conditioned on ideal time.” 
Though developed on occasion of experience, their results 
go far beyond experience, and stand for truths which the 
human mind determines must hold everywhere and for- 
ever. Secondly, the whole science of geometrical quan- 
tities and relations is equally a product of the mind. 
Geometry is not the science of the relations of space, 
but of the relations conceived possible in space. It 
assumes pure space in which it places its ideal creations. 
The geometrical concepts are all idealized. For example, 
the mathematical “ point,” the mathematical “line,” the 
mathematical “surface,” are never known as physical 
realities. They are not things seen or imaged. The 
point, as position without extension, or the line, without 
breadth or thickness, is not known to our senses. The 
point is a zero of magnitude— yet it is not nothing. 
“Nothing is nowhere, but the point is somewhere.” The 
mind, starting from experiences of extended material 
objects, goes beyond experience and creates these con- 


172 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


cepts as the starting points for true reasoning, or the 
beginnings of thouglit-processes, through which are built 
up coherent and far-reaching systems of ideal truth. 
With these beginnings, the point, the line, the surface, 
the triangle, and solid, and the axioms of pure thought, 
the mind goes into space or vacancy, and determines, 
among motions, divisions, and relations conceivable in it, 
what must be ideally and forever true of them. It thus 
forms a science of the possible and necessary relations of 
existences in space. It is true that many of the geome- 
ter’s a priori laws, as well as his concepts, have been sug- 
gested by actual forms in nature. Knowledge starts in 
knowing concrete realities. But the thought, acting on 
these suggesting forms, creates ideal products and ex- 
tends conclusions beyond the observed phenomena, and 
reaches necessary and universal principles of being. The 
whole system of geometrical truth, as well as of arith- 
metical, is, therefore, a creation of thought under the 
laws of subjective mental action. 

Now the impressively significant thing is that these 
truths which thus come out of the mind, when applied to 
nature are found to tally with the realities in the actual 
structure of the universe. Mind and matter, two realities 
known in sense-perception and consciousness as actually 
existing, if anything is known to exist, though possessing 
no common attributes, and incapable of being resolved 
into one and the same thing, are yet found perfectly 
adapted to each other in all the laws which respectively 
regulate them in their independent action. The laws 
that appear in the one answer to the laws that hold in 
the other. This fact is illustrated on every hand: 

It appears in the law of equivalents and multiple pro- 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 173 


portions, under which all chemical. combinations are 
found to occur. The uniting atomic weights conform to 
a mathematically ascertained order. What the laws of 
thought require for true numerical ratios or proportions 
is discovered to be the actual rule under which nature 
works in her great chemical laboratory. The subjective 
movements of mind and the objective movements of 
physical substances recognize common standards. 

It is seen in crystallization. ‘Crystals, we are told, 
may be studied from two points of view; first, as prod- 
ucts of pure thought, like the solids of geometry; and, 
secondly, as objects of natural history; and the speci- 
mens found in nature, as far as examined, are discovered 
to correspond to the deductions of geometry.” In the 
relations of their sides and angles, they are expressible in 
the formule of mathematical proportions. Crystalliza- 
tion is found to take place according to the laws of 
orderly thought. 

The laws of sound are reducible to mathematical state- 
ment. The harmonies of music are well known to arise 
from certain fixed ratios in the vibrations of sonorous 
bodies. These ratios correspond to the orderly relations 
called for in arithmetical thought. The laws of the 
mind’s knowing and of the world’s constitution answer to 
each other in this. 

Vegetable growth conforms to this principle of numer- 
icalsymmetry. The leaves of plants are always arranged 
in spirals about the stem; and both the number of leaves 
and the number of turns of the spiral are always the same 
for any given plant. A comparison of different plants shows 
that these numbers, whatever they may be, stand in the re- 
lation of an orderly proportion. The simplest arrange- 


174 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


ment is that in which there are two leaves for each turn of 
the spiral; another arrangement completes the turn with 
three; still another completes two turns with five leaves, 
Taking various plants and writing out the relations be- 
tween the number of leaves and turns of the spiral, we 
obtain, in succession, the fractions 4, 4, 2, 4, a, fh 
and $4, a regularly ascending series in which any two 
combined will make the next, while the numerator of any 
one added to the denominator of the preceding gives the 
denominator of the fraction whose numerator is em- 
ployed. These numerical relations are found holding in 
the scales of every cone and bud, in the order of the 
bracts about the blossoms of the daisy, and in the posi- 
tion of every leaf on every plant. They do not belong 
only to the present flora of our globe. They are found 
in fossil botany. Plants have been constructed on the 
same general plan from the beginning. The same mathe- 
matical spiral which regulates the formation of a pine 
cone in one of our own woods governed their formation 
in the earliest geological forests which we dig up from 
beneath hundreds of feet of solid rock. 

When we pass out into the distant regions of astron- 
omy, we find the most impressive examples of the fact we 
are illustrating. In the solar system, the intervals between 
the planets, with the exception of Neptune, go on doubling, 
or nearly so, as we recede from the sun. And when we 
compare the periodic times of their revolutions, beginning 
with the most distant, we discover that we have for Uranus 
about one-half that of Neptune, for Saturn one-third that 
of Uranus, for Jupiter two-fifths that of Saturn, for the 
asteroids three-eighths that of Jupiter, for Mars about 
five-thirteenths that of the asteroids, for Venus eight- 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 175 


twenty-firsts that of Mars, and for Mercury about thirteen- 
- thirty-fourths of that of Venus. The time of the earth is 
slightly exceptional. Writing out the numbers of this 
order, ' 
3; 3, 3, % Ps» 2p kb 

and comparing them with those in vegetation, it is seen 
that we have the same series of fractions in the arrange- 
ment of leaves on plants and in the periods of the 
heavenly bodies. The mental order that fixes mathe- 
matical formule serves to express the facts not only in 
nature immediately around us, but in the movements of 
far-off worlds. There is thus seen to be an exact adapta- 
tion of the laws of mind to the realities of the objective 
constitution of the universe. The sciences are all crystal- 
lizing in mathematical form. We can take these creations 
of pure thought from human mind, and measure the 
actual distances and motions in the far-away heavens, 
determine the planetary orbits, future conjunctions of 
starry worlds, and eclipses that will be visible in centuries 
to come. The mind’s products are adjusted by zs laws 
into the same mould as the realities of the universe are by 
their laws. This is not only a fact of amazing adaptation 
of the independent action of the mind to the realities of 
the cosmic system, but one that clearly points to the intel- 
lectual Cause of the universe. It exhibits thought answer- 
ing to thought. The universe is constructed according to 
mental laws. The a priori truths, intuitively appearing 
as necessary in mathematical relations in time and space, 
are found to have been actualized in the universe from the 
beginning. ‘Plato’s conic sections and Euclid’s division 
into extreme and mean ratio were made and used long 


176 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


before the days of Plato or Euclid, in the forms of earth 
and the orbits of the heavenly bodies.” 

Here we must close these illustrations of final cause 
in nature. They.might be continued to any extent, for 
nature is jewelled with them everywhere. Acting for 
ends is an omnipresent feature in the constitution and 
movement of the world. Nature is conceded to be a great 
system, in well adjusted and consistent unity; and when 
final cause is found to be the determining cause in one 
part, it means that this principle pervades it everywhere, 
and gives the universal order and consistency. These 
examples, therefore, are suflicient—typical of nature’s 
whole method. They leave no room whatever to doubt 
the point which it has been the sole object of this section 
to establish, that nature does exhibit facts of finality, 
facts so clear, constant, and pervading as to prove finality 
to be an unquestionable principle of its action. 


SECTION IIL 


Frnat Cause In Nature Demanps INTELLIGENCE 
AND WILL. 


The point to be shown in this section is that these 
adjusted adaptations in nature must be referred to an 
intelligent predetermining Will. Finality has its neces- 
sary correlate in intentionality. This identifies the cause 
as a Personal Being. 

In the face of the spontaneous conclusion men draw 
from adaptation to a designer, it may seem almost super- 
fluous to go through the labor of presenting reasons to 
sustain this further and concluding point in the teleo- 
logical syllogism. That “design,” in the sense of a 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 177 


structured adaptation of means to an end, implies a 
designer, seems so nearly a self-evident proposition, that 
we are at first at a loss to understand how there can 
be any room for doubt, or for proof to remove doubt. 
But, as already mentioned, a real distinction is asserted, 
and objectors claim that the proof of adaptations in 
nature is still short of the proof of an _ intelligent 
author. For instance, Hume says, in substance: “The 
argument from design is simply analogical. But we have 
no right to assume that because we know from experience 
that houses, ships, watches, or other arrangements which 
we produce in the order of the world about us are due to 
this cause, therefore this is the only cause that can pro- 
duce orderly arrangement. For aught we know, there 
may be other causes besides mind for orderly arrange- 
ment—that to make the kind of causation we find in 
ourselves the necessary cause for the order of the whole 
system of things is to make man the measure of the uni- 
verse.”? J. S. Mill repeats the objection, and calls the 
conclusion which assumes mind as the only possible cause 
of acting for ends “an outrageous stretch of inference.” 
The amount of the- objection in this form, it will be 
observed, offers no positive disproof of the dependence of 
finality on an intelligent cause, but only suggests that 
there may be some other cause for it, only raises a faint 
or possible doubt, and then claims that the theistic con- 
clusion falls short of a full demonstration. This claim 
is helped into plausibility by pantheistic or semi-panthe- 
istic philosophies. The soul of nature is represented 
as itself the principle of all things, working not as a 
transcendent God, but as an internal or immanent blind 


2 1 Dialogue concerning Natural Religion. 


178 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


principle. This is the substance of explanation by 
Hegel’s “idea,” and by Schopenhauer’s unconscious 
“will.” The theories emphasize all the facts of con- 
trast between nature and art. They point out, espe- 
cially, that the finality which works in man’s industry 
is external to its product. But in nature it is internal, 
working as an inward force. Instinct is given as the 
completest type of the process. It is illustrated also 
in the production of organisms. In these the movement 
is inherent and self-contained. In this difference it is 
claimed that the true analogy between human industry 
and nature’s products is broken. Human mechanism pro- 
duces nothing that shows this peculiar immanent force; 
nature’s works are characterized by this, and thus show | 
the possible action of a principle other than mental in- 
tentionality, which in itself must suffice for all that it 
-does. The “end” is not sought or found by any intel- 
ligent or conscious apprehension and pursuit, but appears 
out of the eternal conformity of things to their simple 
essence. “In nature the cause attains its end by self- 
development.” 

Leading materialists have been endeavoring to reinforce 
this denial of an intelligent cause for finality by claiming 
that the modern hypothesis of evolution suggests how 
conformity to the end in organisms can originate without 
any intermingling of an intelligence, by the blind admin- 
istration of a law of nature. A fortuitous development 
in atomic and molecular structure, under a law of sur- 
vival of forms best fulfilling conditions of stability, it is 
asserted, is sufficient, in its action from an infinitely 
remote past, to have fixed those formations which now 
look like intended adaptations in the midst of the whole 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 1%9 


evolution. It is all credited as a mere result of laws inhe- 
rent in the blind movement. The only finality, it is said, 
is the finality of the forces immanent or inherent in matter 
itself.‘ Hzeckel says: “The history of evolution convinces 
us that the highly purposive and admirably constituted 
sense-organs, like all other organs, have developed without 
premeditated aim.” It is needful, therefore, to consider 
this point and complete the teleological argument by pre- 
senting some of the evidence on which we are justified in 
taking the actual finality found to pervade nature as the 
proper and sufficient proof of a supreme intelligent First 
Cause. 

1. The first thing to be considered is that intelligence 
is at once the natural explanation of adaptation of means 
to ends, and the onty cause of which we know. We 
know mind, as an intelligent, voluntary agent, to be the 
cause of design continually. We know this by conscious- 
ness. If we do not know this, we know nothing; our 
knowledge is actual zero. By observation and the commu- 
nications of our fellow-men, we know them to be the au- 
thors of arrangement and contrivance. Personality, or 
intelligent will, has filled all lands and all centuries with 
purposive activities and structured works, The character- 
izing feature of the products of human industry is that 
they reveal a designer at every point, and establish the 
law of finality as a law of mind. They identify adapta- 
tion to ends as a mental function. If we wish to know 
the source of objective design, 7.¢., of planned structures, 
we always find it, through the entire range of the world’s 
activity in all times and climes, in a designing intelligence, 
and in this alone. Even on the mere ground of induction, 


1 See Albert Lange’s History of Materialism (Houghton, Mifflin & Co ), Vol. 
II, pp. 26-80. 


180 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


therefore, there would be, to say the least, as much force 
and validity in this proof as for any scientifie conclusion 
whatever. For the induction is complete and universal, 
unembarrassed by a single contrary fact for a counter in- 
duction, The unbroken experience and knowledge of the 
race have found adaptive industries explained only in 
intelligence. We know mind to be a cause that acts for 
ends through adaptation of select means, and we know of 
no other cause. Consciousness reveals no other. Science, 
working down among elements and molecules, and up to 
suns and stellar systems, detects no other. The supposed 
possibility of any other is sustained by no evidence what- 
ever. The suggestion has nothing to back it. Mind, 
therefore, has been left to us as the only known cause or 
explanation of specialized adaptation and structure. It is 
surely scientific to follow where the whole induction points. 
It is absurdly irrational to reject this in favor of some 
utterly unknown but supposed possibility. 

So.directly does this become the rational and necessary 
interpretation of finality, that opponents of the argument 
are compelled to concede its weight. For instance, J. S. 
Mill, though he has represented it as involving “an outra- 
geous stretch of inference,” feels forced to admit that de- 
sign has not been eliminated from nature, or the necessity 
of referring it to intelligence overcome. In his Essays 
on Religion, he says: “The particular combination of 
organic elements called the eye had, in every instance, a 
beginning in time, and must, therefore, have been brought 
together by a cause, or causes. The number of instances 
is immeasurably greater than is, by the principles of the 
inductive logic, required for the exclusion of a random 
concurrence of independent causes, or, speaking techni- 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 181 


cally, for the elimination of chance. We are, therefore, 
warranted by the canons of induction in concluding that 
what brought all these elements together was some cause 
common to them all; and inasmuch as the elements agree 
in the single circumstance of conspiring to produce sight, 
there must be some connection by way of causation be- 
tween the cause which brought these elements together 
and the fact of sight. . . . The natural sequel to the ar- 
gument would be this: Sight, being a fact not precedent 
but subsequent to the putting together of the organic 
structure of the eye, can only be connected with the pro- 
duction of that structure in the character of a final, not 
an efficient cause. But this at once marks the origin as 
proceeding from an intelligent Will.” 

The force of this evidence is increased by the discrim- 
inating recognition which mind has for its own peculiar 
working and products. It includes not simply the fact 
that we know intelligence to be a cause of specialized 
adaptations, and we know of no other, but still more, that 
in those processes of finality found in nature the human 
mind directly and positively recognizes the intelligence it 
is compelled to postulate. Spontaneously mind knows its 
own everywhere, discriminating it by direct insight from 
every other kind of working. In knowing itself it has 
fellowship with universal mind. When it meets mind, 
wherever acting, it recognizes it. We thus not only 
know it to be a cause of adaptation of means to purposed 
ends, beyond which we know of no other, but we identify 
its presence by a kind of intuitive necessity. We do not 
simply infer that intelligence must be working here, but 
we find it here. Nature, in so many of its laws and 
products, is so truly the concrete language of adjustive 


182 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


thought, it is so clearly the engraved page of a designed 
expression, the embodiment of a rational idea, that the 
human mind reads intelligence there as it reads it on a 
printed page. It is in no unknown tongue, but in the 
language of universal mind. The wisdom and working 
shining out from nature attest themselves as the working 
and wisdom of a Thinker. In the very adaptation which 
the mind finds in itself to the study and interpretation of 
nature, it becomes aware that the world isa thought, an 
actual expression of an orderly and intelligent plan. 
There is, therefore, one cause and only one known to the 
human mind for finality, and by spontaneous rational 
insight that is recognized and identified as the actual 
cause. For it is just the signs of intelligence that the 
mind finds. To deny the force of this is equivalent to 
asserting that unconsciousness may act the part of intel- 
ligence, or contradictories may work as the same. 

We have thus, even in this first point, the natural and 
legitimate conclusion from the data—a conclusion war- 
ranted as an induction from universal experience. No 
scientific truth whatever rests on an induction so complete 
and impressive. It is not, indeed, a “demonstration,” for 
the subject does not admit of that kind of proof; but it 
is the kind of evidence on which all the practical interests 
of life are necessarily directed. This conclusion as to the 
connection between intelligence and the pursuit of special 
ends is the universal conviction of the unsophisticated 
judgment of the race. And it is the conclusion, too, when 
the most careful scrutiny is made into the facts, and these 
facts are interpreted by the best principles of the induc- 
tive logic. It cannot, therefore, be justly set aside until 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 183: 


objectors shall have shown some other explanation better 
sustained. 

2. The tmmanence of finality in nature, offered as. 
obviating the necessity of a creative intelligence, entirely 
fails to answer the purpose for which it is alleged. The 
fact that the forces work internally in nature is not dis- 
puted. We fully admit that its finality, whether in organic 
processes or in instincts, is accomplished through principles 
which work from within. The point of their proximate 
action is not from without. This is one of the acknowl- 
edged differences between the finality of nature and that 
of human mechanism. The energy, whatever it may be, 
works within the processes, and not as an artificer stand- 
ing outside. In this respect growth is different from the 
work of man’s industry. The blind inner force tends to: 
an end, as if self-moving. The actual process goes on by 
an interior principle—a principle locally contained in 
nature itself. But the insufficiency of this fact, when 
offered as a solution supposed to nullify the need of a 
designing mind, becomes clear in recalling three points: 

(1) Internal or immanent finality does not necessarily 
mean a simply immanent cause. That is, it does not 
necessarily exclude a cause starting back of the blind 
force that is internally working to its end. Examples. 
illustrating the reality of the agency of mind behind 
processes that work internally and blindly are about us. 
every day. The chronometer, acting in interior adap- 
tation for marking time as if it meant to do so, is not 
explained in its own immanent force and action. The 
finality has been lodged for a time in the intrinsic struct- 
ure. Though the forces work interiorly, they do not ex- 
clude an intentional and transcendent cause. Or, take 


184 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


an illustration clearly within the sphere of nature. We 
constantly observe in men action moving blindly or in- 
stinctively to useful ends, lodged as hereditary mental and 
dispositional traits which have been incorporated primarily 
by intentional activity. A similar result appears in the 
modified action of instinct, and even of organization itself, 
under the training, by man, of the domesticated animals. 
The organisms and instincts of nature exhibit no finality 
that is absolute or underived, and that may not have 
an intelligent cause. Take an individual organism. The 
individual is not the cause of itself. Or a species— 
a species is not its own cause. The forces which work 
immanently in both individuals and species are not 
absolutely or restrictively immanent. The immanence 
found is only relative, and thus does not exclude an 
intentional cause. If it be said that “a seed virtually 
contains all the constituent parts of the plant produced 
from it, and that its development is only directed toward 
its preservation,” it is in point to reply that this finality 
in the seed, not being absolute, may itself, with all the 
laws which have produced it, be due to a primary pur- 
posive cause. 

(2) This immanent force, supposed to be blindly act- 
ing as a final cause, not being primitive or absolute, but 
derived and relative, not only allows an intelligent pur- 
pose as the real cause behind it, but requires it, unless 
unknown causation is preferred to known. For, to take 
the best form of such internal finality, éxstinet, this, not 
being the cause of itself, is not the full true cause of its 
products. It is not a cause in the real sense at all, but 
only a carrier of forces and laws through a fixed movement 
to its product. To offer this as the full account of it is the 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 185 


absurdity of pointing to a part of a process as showing 
the determining cause of it all. For the specialized ends, 
therefore, to which instinct always works, but of which it 
knows nothing, we are obliged to find a cause in a con- 
scious intelligence that has organized the instinct. An 
unconscious intelligence is a contradiction in terms, as 
truly as would be “round squares.” Instinct itself is a 
specialized adaptation to all that comes out of it, and 
needs itself to be accounted for. Its property is that it 
precisely resembles a work calculated and arranged be- 
forehand. And for the predetermination that acts in it 
and through it, intelligence is the natural and only rational 
explanation. 

(3) The claim that inherent and underived forces of 
nature have produced the actual order and adaptations 
of the universe, without knowing either ends or means, 
resolves itself into the theory of mere blind evolution. It 
means that the energies of matter moved to the results 
which have been reached by their intrinsic laws in self- 
direction and self-limitation. This theory, strictly viewed, 
displaces final cause itself. Still, as it does not destroy or 
blot out the actual facts of order and adaptation from the 
world, it is necessary to take the claim into consideration. 
This claim, however, when examined in its last analysis, is 
simply to revert to the hypothesis of chance. It rests in 
absolute materialism, and sees in matter the supposed 
“potency of all things.” It views the atoms as eternal 
and having in themselves and their underived modes of 
motion and interaction the real and only power to which 
the order of the universe in both nature and man is to 
be credited. Scientific speculation shapes the theory vari- 
ously; but whatever shape is given to it, it furnishes no 


186 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


other solution of the actual finality pervading nature than 
such as leaves it fundamentally the work of chance. The 
consideration of this must be our next point. 

3. That this finality requires an intelligent author is 
impressively certain from the fact that a denial of such 
cause throws us back on chance. That this is the true 
and inevitable alternative to intentionality has already 
been shown. Chance is no denial of cause, but of design. 
It means mere coincidence, a fortuitous result of forces 
acting without purpose, but giving origin to products that 
prove useful, as imagined in that kind of motion and 
evolution which is said to form organisms and adapt them 
to their actual ends without any guiding design. Can the 
order, adaptation, harmony, and consistency of the con- 
stitution of things, all its manifest subjection to the law 
of utility and beauty, be rationally referred to chance? 
This is the question to be answered at this point. Every 
denial of intentionality for finality is an affirmation of the 
sufficiency of chance. For there is no other alternative. 
The reductio ad absurdum, therefore, applied to this 
affirmation, will be a proof of the authorship of nature in 
a creative intelligence. : 

Let us, for argument’s sake, suppose matter to be eter- 
nal—a supposition, however, in open conflict with all its 
characteristics of finiteness and dependence. The starting 
point, then, for our world and the universe, as they have 
now come to be, must have been the potency of the atoms, 
whatever they may be. There is no cause back of them. 
See how the case stands. There are countless millions of 
millions of them. But the universe, as we find it, is man- 
ifestly one, a single, magnificent, complex, but harmonious 
system. Its most impressive characteristic is the unity in 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 187 


variety and the variety in unity, that mark it in all its 
parts and as a stupendous whole. The unity that appears 
in a single organ, say an eye, is not more unquestionable 
than that in which the solar system acts together, or starry 
systems unite with starry systems. How could these at- 
oms, moving blindly, form the universe into such marvel- 
lous unity and order? There is not a particle of evidence 
that a dormant but germinal intelligence — the so-called 
“unconscious intelligence”—belongs essentially to the 
atoms. Even if it did belong to them, it would be un- 
speakably absurd to suppose that they could by unanimous 
counsel agree to work to a common plan. For, between 
such rudimentary or unborn intelligence and the counsel, 
thought, and forecast seen in nature’s finality, the dispro- 
portion is infinite. Nothing short of omniscience itself 
could have sufficed for the work these atoms had on hand. 
But could they combine by mere chance, and by chance 
interaction produce such a universe as that in which we 
live, and of which we form a part? It is. evident that 
there must be millions to one against these atoms, as they 
jostle age after age together, producing even the simplest 
structures or organisms that mark the course of nature — 
and millions to one that chance action of atoms would pull 
down and destroy any thus happening to occur. 

But even were we to suppose, despite this tremendous 
improbability, that chance could produce and continue in 
existence some useful combinations, still the difficulty of 
thus accounting for all the elaborate and beneficent adap- 
tations which everywhere illuminate nature would be mul- 
tiplied a thousand fold at every step of the attempt. The 
chances against the more complex combinations, depend- 
ent on the simpler and more elementary, and against the 


188 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


stability of the higher, grow so clearly in geometrical pro- 
gression, that it soon becomes a mathematical certainty 
that without a teleological plan the world must forever 
remain achaos. Atheistic evolutionism has sorely felt this 
difficulty, and to save the case has been wont, with other 
expedients, to fall back on the supposed greatness of the 
time. ‘“ Accidental variations% of accidental combina- 
tions, becoming, somehow, stable through their usefulness, 
surviving because of their fitness with environment, have 
been spoken of as able, in the countless ages of the earth, 
to have transmuted the chaos into a cosmos. But unfortu- 
nately for the hypothesis, as has often been pointed out, 
time, whose help is supposed to suffice, is not a cause of 
anything, but only a multiplier, and when, as in this case, 
what we have to multiply is a principle of confusion, order 
cannot be the product." Time may afford scope and field 
for an intelligent, selecting, arranging, and unifying mind 
to produce an orderly system, of harmonized parts and for 
beneficent purpose, but affords no explanation whatever 
how chance movements of an infinity of blind or even po- 
tentially conscious atoms, could issue in a universe whose 
fundamental and most characteristic action no longer ex- 
hibits any sign of chance. For, in the genuine and best 
inductive science and philosophy of to-day the word 
“chance” has no place or recognition; it is a thought 
utterly irreconcilable with the reign of wise law and 
manifest order everywhere. 

Further, to set forth more fully, if possible, the absurd- 
ity of crediting the fortuitous movements of matter, as in 
any atheistic hypothesis of either ancient or modern evo- 
lution, with the production of the present universe, so rich 


1 Wright's Logic of the Christian Evidences, p. 82. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 189 


in wide-reaching and marvellous adaptations, we must put 
it under the light of the mathematical doctrine of chances. 
Take a particular organ—the eye. In this organ physiol- 
ogy points out at least thirteen distinct particulars, the 
failure of any one of which would result in failure of vis- 
ion. Assuming the chance of each of these particulars 
being developed without design in embryonic life to be 
equal to the chance of its not being developed, and there- 
fore represented by one-half —as of a penny’s falling head 
or tail—then, since the probability of the concurrence of 
the thirteen conditions is obtained by multiplying into 
each other the fractions denoting the probability of each 
condition taken singly, the likelihood of the production of 
the eye by chance would be represented by yyy3. That 
is, there would be 8,192 chances against one of its being so 
made. This, however, would denote only the improbability 
of such origin of a single eye. But eyes occur in pairs all 
through nature. For the conjunction of the two, in any 
one person, that improbability would be doubled. Against 
the repetition of the occurrence in the countless millions 
of eyes, the chances would be increased to inexpressible 
figures. 

But this is only the beginning. For the production of 
any one particular in the eye, thousands of molecules must 
concur to the same end. How little probability of their 
doing so accidentally, will appear from some mathematical 
calculations of the various combinations possible in chance 
movements. The play of combinations possible out of ten 
different units, or the number of changes that may be 
rung on ten bells, is 3,628,800. The different combina- 
tions that may be made with the twenty-six letters of the 
alphabet require twenty-seven places of figures to expres¢ 


190 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


them. Prof. Jevons has calculated that in the game of 
whist, with a pack of fifty-two cards, four hands of thir- 
teen being held simultaneously, the number of distinct 
deals becomes so vast as to require for its statement 
twenty-eight places of figures, and says that if the whole 
population of the world, say a hundred thousand millions 
of persons, were to deal cards day and night for a hun- 
dred millions of years they would not in that time have 
exhausted a hundred thousandth part of the possible 
deals. It seems in the highest degree improbable that 
one game of whist has ever been exactly like another, ex- 
cept by intention." In the light of such figures, express- 
ing the almost infinite uncertainties of the play of random 
combinations, the improbability becomes evident, that the 
countless molecules should fortuitously combine to produce 
the finely ordered and adjusted parts of the eye, or that 
all the different and needful chemical elements should 
thus unite, in their proportionate quantities, to form each 
and all of the organs, and the union of organs, in the 
body. 

To understand the nature of the problem it must be 
remembered that the molecules are combined not only in 
different numbers and proportions, but in successive accu- 
mulations, each union becoming a unit for a further and 
dependent union. The primary unions are only the begin- 
ning of nature’s action. Unions are built on unions, in 
increasing complexity, system on system. The atoms 
combine in molecules, the molecules form cells, the cells 
build organs, the organs arrange themselves codperatively 
into organisms or individuals, and the individuals form a 
dualism for the continuance of races. Each step in the 


1 Principles of Science, Vol. I, p. 217. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 191 


order of dependent correlations passes into vaster ranges 
of the play of permutation. Take, in illustration, the 
unities which may be made with the twenty-six letters of 
ouralphabet. With these may be formed several trillions of 
words. With these words may be constructed an im- 
mensely larger number of sentences. With these sentences 
a still greater number of books can be made. With these 
books still a higher diversity of libraries. This last is what 
mathematicians call a combination of the “fifth order.” 
An example of this is given in the arrangement of two 
units in all possible ways in ascending rank: First step, 2; 
next step, 4; third step, 16; fourth step, 65,536; fifth 
step, 65,536 twos multiplied together, making a number 
so great as to require 19,729 places of figures. ‘“‘ The 
problem,” it has well been said, “involved in undisguised 
atheism is to derive the uniformities by which we live and 
move and have our being, from generation to generation, 
from chance combinations when increased to infinite orders 
of the powers of infinity.”' These figures make it as 
certain as applied mathematics can make anything that 
the material elements could not have given the world its 
intelligible method and filled it with its wonders of orderly 
subserviency to utility and pleasure, by any merely inher- 
ent, blind, and undesigning cause. To believe that the 
poems of Homer and Milton or the histories of Motley 
and Bancroft might be but accidental products of the 
blind interaction of the letters of the alphabet, would not 
surpass the credulity of crediting to chance the poems and 
history of nature’s universal movement. 

The force of this cannot be set aside by saying, as has 
often been said, that the almost infinitely probable may 


1 Wright's Logic of the Christian Evidences, p. 84. 


192 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


yet occur —that while there may be trillions on trillions 
against one, yet the one may happen, when infinite time 
allows all possible combinations. This could avail only if 
the possible combinations could be conceived of as run- 
ning on in regular order without reversion through the 
possible series. But such orderly progress through these 
_ combinations, so as to try all and preserve the useful, is 
itself a manifest subordination to plan and a contradiec- 
tion to chance. It is clear that the movement might 
otherwise pass very often through similar combinations, 
or replace its own attained order with confusion, and so, 
despite the infinite time, fail to exhaust the false condi- 
tions for the true. 

Nor is the force of this evidence evaded by adopting 
the statement which is wont to affirm these adaptations 
to ends as simply “the necessary conditions of existence.” 
It is alleged that the forces of nature have taken the 
course they have in virtue of their own inherent and eter- 
nal laws, in the blindest chance, indeed, but deflected out 
of chaos and continued in better and better adaptive 
movement just because these combinations have in them 
the conditions of coherence and stability. The moulds of 
the non-adjusted are broken and disappear. The orderly 
remain because they are stronger. “The survival of the 
fittest’ expresses the weakness of disorder in compari- 
son with order, the strength and permanence which the 
serviceable gets from its own serviceableness in the strug- 
gle of existence. 

But this expression, “conditions of existence,” is 
ambiguous, and when cleared of its obscurities, fails to 
be an explanation. It may mean either of two things. 
(1) It may be taken in its absolute sense, that only 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 193- 


what is orderly and codrdinated to use can exist. In 
this sense, the assertion is utterly without foundation. 
For a chaos has as much chance to exist as a cosmos, and 
by the very theory of chance the cosmos only comes in by 
the slightest possibility. Unorganized and amorphous 
masses actually exist, and have their “conditions of exist- 
ence,” much easier than useful organizations. The latter 
have comparatively poor chance in the struggle of being. 
Simply to find “ conditions of existence” nature need not 
ascend to the higher forms at all. (2) It may be taken in 
a relative sense —that an organism can be what it is, 
and fulfil its functions, only on condition that its parts are 
adjusted as they are. Then it is no explanation whatever 
of its origin, and furnishes no reason why it should hold 
its place at all against the powers of inorganic nature 
which in fact crumble every individual one into dust. 
The strings and its other adjusted parts are the “neces- 
sary conditions” of a harp, but this is by no means a 
showing that the harp exists without the agency of an 
intelligent maker. Apart from this, what necessity is 
there for the existence of the harp at all? It is just from 
its fulfilling the conditions of being a harp that we know it 
has been made by intelligence and not by chance. The 
adaptation of the parts of an organism of nature, both to 
each other and to their environment, is indeed the neces- 
sary condition of the existence and relative stability of 
such organism in its specific and distinguishing character, 
but it is just this complete adaptation, with such stability 
of it, that chance is unable to furnish a reason for. The 
true state of the matter is this: The field of existence 
being so much vaster and easier in the lower range of 


unorganized combinations, the alleged “conditions,” when. 
13 


194 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


sifted, are not “necessary ” conditions of existence at all, 
but conditions of something far higher and rational, i.¢., of 
happiness, utility, subserviency to the ideals and needs of 
a rational system up into which they reach. The truth is 
that it is just this finality found beyond the grade which 
may be sunk from view in the mere essentials of existence, 
that pushes forward the great problem whose solution we 
are seeking, but for whose rational explanation no causal 
forces short of that of prearranging intelligence are found 
‘satisfactorily competent. Such intelligence we know un- 
questionably to be the appropriate and specific cause of 
finality. Atheism, in rejecting this cause, is compelled to 
“gave recourse to some form of the hypothesis of chance. 

Ty" 4. The leading explanations of the hypothesis of evo- 
lution concede the necessity of a creative orduining intel- 
ligence for all that nature includes from its start. It is 
this hypothesis that has given plausibility to the supposed 
competency of the immanent and fortuitous causality 
already noticed. It is proper to consider, more distinetly, 
the bearings on theism of this view of nature, accepted 
now in greater or less degree by many leading scientists. 
It asserts no cause of finality except such as is found in 
mind. 

The hypothesis of evolution may be viewed as includ- 
ing more orless. (1) As including less: There is unques- 
tionably some firmly established scientific truth expressed 
by this term. The world of to-day, so full of order and 
adaptations, was not made as it is, at once. It was not 
produced by a single act of power, in the form, aspect, 
and completeness we now see, crowded and adorned with 
the life and structures which now appear. Geology leaves 
no room to doubt that our very rocks, hills, and mountains 


THE TELEOLOGICAIL EVIDENCE. 195 


have appeared under changes in which the earth has 
advanced from conditions in which what now is was not. 
Paleontology leaves no doubt that both vegetable and ani- 
mal life in the early geological ages was simpler and of 
lower order than that which fills the earth now. The 
things that are made have come to be as they are through 
a development or progressive movement out of a very 
remote past and by a process in some respects gradual. 
Beyond all doubt there has been some kind of evolution 
for the history of the earth, and we must put the creative 
design and word to work far back in the depth of the ages. 
(2) As including more: An evolution, favored by scientists 
of great name as a “ working hypothesis,” which teaches as 
probable that all forms of both vegetable and animal life 
have been naturally evolved, from primordial germs, say 
in the forms of protoplasm, and have been gradually differ- 
entiated and improved by accumulated and accumulating 
characteristics, through natural descent, into the earth’s 
present flora and fauna, man included. In this view the 
doctrine of direct creation is superseded by that of an 
evolution by slow and gradual advance and ascent through 
countless ages, until at last the present orders of plants, 
- races of animals and man appear as the lineal descendants 
of the earliest and lowest organizations. Darwinism has 
been the leading phase of this hypothesis, as being the 
most elaborate attempt to explain on this theory of 
descent, not only the origin and structure of the irrational 
animals, but of man himself, under the action of “natural 
selection and survival of the fittest.” Of such descent 
from preéxisting species, various subordinate hypotheses 
present differing explanations. Some picture the transi- 
tion as sudden and divinely planned. Others as made 


196 NATURAL THEOLOGY, 


naturally by changes too gradual to be perceived except 
in widely separated stages. 

Of this evolutionary teaching, in this full sense, it is to 
be noted; 

(1) It is only a hypothesis, Though believed by 
many, it has not been proved. It is not to be looked 
upon as demonstrated or even scientifically established 
truth, but as a provisional “working hypothesis,” to be 
allowed only so much weight as the facts and reasons 
given entitle it. But even were it scientifically estab- 
lished, it would not remove the difficulty of atheism, or 
destroy the proofs of theism. 

(2) The theory does not obliterate from nature the 
actual facts of finality. These are still around and in us, 
unchanged by the theory, clear and impressive. If evolu- 
tion and finality should indeed be irreconcilable, then the 
omnipresent order of nature would be evermore discredit- 
ing the theory. These perpetual, strong, clear, ineradica- 
ble facts teach finality more impressively than any other 
facts can teach evolution. 

(3) But evolution in its very nature is not a cause, 
but only a mode. It gives only the order of the process 
through which the cause has been operating. It seeks to 
set forth the method by which the cause, whatever it be, 
has worked. In no just sense, therefore, can it be held as 
necessarily excluding design. Prof. Huxley is right when 
he admits that in this view of the world, the teleologist 
always has the advantage of being able to defy his op- 
ponent to show that the present arrangements were not 
from the very first intended to be brought about.’ The 
effect of evolution, therefore, were it regarded as estab- 


1 Critiques and Addresses, p. 305. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 197 


lished in the full form which teaches the derivative origin 
of species, would simply be, in this connection, to throw 
back the point from which the designing cause has been 
actually working to a remoter past. Evolution could 
evolve only what was involved in the forces and laws at 
the very beginning. The effect, then, would be to make 
the design sweep through longer range and wider field. 
The plan revealed in the issue may be viewed as provided 
for in the very atoms and their given laws. Our dis- 
covery of laws is no contradiction of ends. 

It is true, materialists have used this hypothesis as an 
occasion for rejecting all teleology. Denying all substan- 
tive existence except matter in the universe, they have 
claimed it as obviating all necessity of assuming a pre- 
determining intelligence for the production of the world, 
and as showing how atomic and molecular mechanics, in 
their intrinsic laws, may have formed things as they are. 
But as their explanation, necessarily and according to 
their own confession, falls back upon either immanent 
finality or chance, or both, no further answer is needed 
than that already given under those heads. 

(4) Evolutionists of highest rank themselves claim that 
the evidences from design for an intelligent Creator are 
not overthrown or weakened by the hypothesis. 

A. R. Wallace, who was an independent codriginator 


of the “selection theory,” 


says: “Why should we sup- 
pose the machine too complicated to have been designed 
by the Creator so complete that it would necessarily work 
out harmonious results?” ? 

Richard Owen, one of England’s most eminent scien- 


tists, says: “ Natural evolution, through secondary causes, 


1 Natural Selection, p. 280. 


198 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


by means of slow physical and organic operations through 
long ages, is not the less clearly recognizable as the act of 
an all-adaptive Mind, because we have abandoned the old 
error of supposing it the result of a primary, direct, and 
sudden act of creational construction.” ' 

Prof. Huxley admits: “There is a wider teleology 
which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is 
actually based on the fundamental ‘proposition of evolu- 
tion.” 

St. George Mivart: “Even ‘design’ and ‘purpose’ are 
recognized as quite compatible with evolution.” ? 

Prof. Asa Gray, one of the most decided evolutionists 
of our land, says: “ What is lost in directness may perhaps 
be gained in breadth and depth. . . . The natural history 
of ends becomes consistent and reasonably intelligible 
under the light of evolution. As the forms and kinds 
rise gradually out of that which was well nigh formless 
into consummate form, so do biological ends rise and 
assert themselves in increasing distinctness and variety. 
Vegetables and animals have paved the earth with inten- 
tions.” ° 

Even Prof. John Fiske, whose enthusiastic Darwinism 
has led him into most daring speculations, affirms: “The 
doctrine of evolution does not allow us to take the athe- 
istic view of man. . . . He who recognizes the slow and 
subtle process of evolution as the way in which God 
makes things come to pass, must take a far higher view. 
. . . The Darwinian theory, properly understood, replaces 
as much teleology as it destroys. From the first dawning 


1 Quoted from Schmid’s Theories of Darwin, p. 222. 
2 Genesis of Species, p. 273. 
3 Natural Science and Religion, pp. 69, 92. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 199 


of life we see all things working together toward one 
mighty goal, the evolution of the most exalted spiritual 
qualities which characterize humanity.” * 

As to the amount of truth that may underlie the 
hypothesis of evolution, or its value as a scientific specu- 
lation, this discussion is not directly concerned. Formi- 
dable difficulties are in the way of its successfully ex- 
plaining many of the phenomena of nature. The win- 
nowing away of its chaff and the saving of whatever 
wheat may be in it may be safely left to Christian science 
and thought. It is enough for our purpose, in this con- 
nection, to note that according to the claims of its repre- 
sentative advocates, the theory is not necessarily non- 
teleological, and cannot be worked without assuming a 
codrdinating intelligence. In whatever conflict it may 
stand with other aspects of Christian truth, it furnishes. 
no disproof of the theistic evidences from design. 

5. But the crowning evidence that the finality of nat- 
ure is due to an intelligent cause is found in the existence 
of human mind and its supremacy in the world. Intelli- 
gent, self-determining personality is the highest fact in 
the actual world. We must have a sufficient reason for 
its existence, and for all that it contains. Apart from an 
infinite intelligence as creator of mind, the existence of 
human personality and its power over nature are an insol- 
uble mystery. We are aware, indeed, of the materialist’s 
theory of deriving human mind from material organiza- 
tion, as a product and manifestation of molecular action. 
But besides the fact that this explanation has commanded 
the assent of but a very small number of thinkers, and is 
contradicted by incontrovertible data of psychology, there 


1 The Destiny of Man, pp. 112, 32, 113. 


200 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


are considerations which show that even were it accepted 
it would fail to annul the necessity of a creative intelli- 
gence. For the creative energy that shows itself intelli- 
gent in the end must be held as intelligent in the begin- 
ning — unless the cause can give to the effect more than 
lies in its own powers. A number of points are to be 
looked at: 

(1) Mind actually exists. Even those who speak of it 

_as a product of brain action admit that it 7s. There is 
such a thing as intelligent will, self-directing personality, 
in the world. It is a power. 

(2) The materialist’s theory, which holds the human 
mind as a product of brain organization, will not work 
without an adaptive intelligence back of the organization. 
If mind results from the molecular action to which the 
hypothesis credits it, then that action must be adapted to 
produce it. And the adaptation thus involved could be con- 

_ sidered as no slight or inferior grade of adaptation, but the 
most elaborate and exact, the subtlest and finest of which 
we can conceive. It is an adaptation the farthest possible 
from chance. If the brain be not only the organ of mind, 
but the producer of mind, with all its laws of order, a very 
cosmos within the cosmos, the summit of nature where its 
whole action becomes purposive and reveals a justifying 
reason for all inferior movement, then the brain itself 
must not only be the most startling fact of finality, but a 
peculiar evidence of designed construction. On this the- 
ory, the two terms, the cause and the effect, the molecu- 
lar action and the mental product, are here in immediate 
connection; and if the molecular action furnishes intelli- 
gence, like a rising light suddenly illuminating all the 
scene, it is difficult to believe that no spark of intelligence 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 201 


was concerned in providing the molecular action. Out of 
matter, into mind—the bloom of nature into free intelli- 
gence is too interpretative to be regarded as brought 
about, and so wisely maintained, by blind atomics alone. 

The wonder of all wonders would be, if a system of nat- 
ure with no mind behind it, with no predetermined order 
lodged within it, with no arranged end for its processes, 
all moving by chance and blind force, should suddenly, at 
this precise point in man’s mental life, emerge into a realm 
of intelligence, will, and purposive activity. At the close 
of a long series of powers moving only in blind, necessi- 
tated action, the series is at once changed into self-con- 
scious intellect, self-directing will, a world of free person- 
ality, ruled by mental laws. Upon what law of merely 
physical succession and continuity could such a phenome- 
non be explained? To suppose no intelligence for this adap- 
tation of brain for the intelligence that appears in its prod- 
uct, is not to assert, as materialists pretend, a scientific 
law of cause and effect in the appearance of mind, but to 
abandon the law of causation, to assert an event without 
adequate cause. For then this asserted function of the 
brain for thought would be credited to chance, and chance 
would have to be installed maker, both of the realm of 
nature and the realm of all the high, free, purposive action 
of mankind. Even on the materialist’s hypothesis, there- 
fore, the existence of self-directing human intelligence de- 
mands, with inexorable logic, the existence of an intelli- 
gent Creator. 

(3) But the conclusion thus required, even on the basis 
of materialism, becomes stronger when the human mind is 
correctly viewed as something other and higher than a 
mere manifestation of matter.. As mentioned in a preced- 


202 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


ing chapter,’ science has been unable to show any explana- 
tion of the origin of mind in any or all of the physical 
forces. Across the transitions between dead matter and 
sensation, sensation and consciousness, consciousness and 
intelligent free will, no bridge of simply physical causa- 
tion has ever been made perceptible. Even the mystery 
of “life” refuses the solution of the scalpel and retort; 
much more, if possible, does “mind” elude all explanation 
by the chemistries or known motions of matter. “That 
it cannot possibly be,” says Prof. Fiske, “the product of 
any cunning arrangement of material particles is demon- 
strated beyond peradventure by what we know of the cor- 
relation of physical forces.”* Mind exists as a spiritual 
entity, with non-material attributes. It is the grand, 
crowning phenomenon of the earth. The very law of its 
existence is to act as a final cause. Thus it becomes the 
ruling reality in the world, down before which everything 
else bows and does homage. As an intelligent agent 
human mind penetrates the secrets of nature, reads the 
laws of its structures and movements, and generalizes its 
principles and facts into grand scientific systems. It dis- 
cerns the vast harmonious adaptations throughout the 
world and far-off starry spheres, and in a wonder-working 
will, seizing hold of the forces and laws in the physical 
constitution of things, makes them servants to its wishes 
and welfare. But being itself a limited, dependent exist- 
ence, it must have had an origin. For this origin there 
must be an adequate cause. Is the intelligence which thus 
turns and masters nature a mere passive and fortuitous 
product of the blind physical forces which it then analyzes 
and uses? Is this mind, so full of intentional activity that 


1 Page 72. 2 The Destiny of Man, p. 42. 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 203 


this kind of energy expresses the characteristic and law 
of its constitution, to be credited to a fortuitous origina- 
tion and perpetuation by unconscious matter? Is this 
victory of finality to be counted as the triumph of a cause 
that never had a purpose? How should chance action 
establish the law of action with design ? 

(+) Stress must be laid upon this freedom of human 
personality. _ If man is in any real sense free, he cannot 
be the mere product of molecular action. If he is the 
pure creature of material motion, his actions must be as 
truly necessitated as the flow of the tides, the fall of rains, 
or the change of seasons, and his counsels and deeds, his 
aims and triumphs, are nothing but the ever on-going inter- 
action of the molecules which compose him. But the con- 
sciousness of the whole race testifies against the suggestion 
of any such law of necessity in human personality. It 
affirms an indubitable freedom; and this at once lifts mind 
into a sphere beyond the reach of physical causation. 
Can causes which act only in necessity create and endow 
a creature with the law of liberty and choice? The sci- 
ence which would interpret the cause of the human mind 
must take full account of all that it presents. It presents 
a wonderful complex of powers, with attributes irreduci- 
ble to identity with those belonging to matter. It acts 
not only in self-determination, but in subjugating nature’s 
plasticity and movements to its service. It has a history, 
written in ages of thought, skill, enterprise, institutions, 
moral systems, religions, arts, sciences, literature, philos- 
ophy. The pretence of accounting for man’s personality, 
with all that it thus embraces and that reveals the nature 
of its essence, by the simple terms of material motion and 
force, can be plausible only if the contents of the problem 


204 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


are forgotten. It can have a seeming success only by 
dropping out of view the very attributes which character- 
ize the phenomenon, the adequate cause of which we are 
seeking. There is a direct and adequate explanation in 
the creative energy of a supreme intelligent First Cause. 
But to resolve this whole world of human intelligence, 
with all its ages of activity and achievement, into dark, 
unconscious, impersonal causation of blind atoms, is in 
fact to abandon the law of causation. For the law re- 
quires adequate cause; but here there is an almost infinite 
disproportion between alleged cause and the actual effects. 

6. It adds great weight to this conclusion, to remem- 
ber that while these reasons call for an intelligent cause 
for the design found in nature, the whole body of the 
inductive sciences rests upon this assumption. The the- 
istic conclusion is seen to be in harmony, not only with 
man’s rational freedom and moral and religious constitu- 
tion, but equally so with all the fundamental scientific 
necessities and interests. For science assumes that nature 
is really an orderly system, conformed to modes compre- 
hensible by the thinking mind. It treats nature in its 
objective facts as answering to the interpretative order of 
the subjective reason. The very idea of “ cause” answers 
in the mind’s estimate of value as an explaining “ rea- 
son.” The universe is treated as a “thought,” explicable 
under human scientific thought. Kepler’s words: “QO, 
God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee,” expresses the real 
assumption which underlies rational science, even when it 
professedly repudiates the assumption. For it always 
seeks an expression of nature in the moulds of mental 
order. It traces the relation of part to part and of part 
to the whole, and attempts to get at their meanings by a 


THE TELEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 205 


discovery of their rational relations to discoverable ends. 
It assumes teleology, and that a teleology in harmony with 
mental laws. The force of this is well summed up in the 
sentences with which President Porter concludes his Jn- 
tellectual Science: “We analyze the several processes 
of knowledge into their underlying assumptions, and we 
find that the one assumption which underlies them all is a 
self-existent Intelligence, who not only can be known by 
man, but who must be known by man in order that man 
may know anything besides. In analyzing our psycholog- 
ical processes, we develop and demonstrate an ultimate 
truth, and that is the truth which the unsophisticated 
intellect of child and man requires and accepts, that there 
is a self-existent personal Intelligence, on whom the uni- 
verse depends for the being and the relations of which it 
consists. We are, therefore, not alone justified, we are 
compelled, to conclude our analysis of the human intel- 
lect with the assertion that its processes involve the 
assumption that there is an uncreated Thinker, whose 
thoughts can be interpreted by the created intellect which 
is made in His image.” 


CHAPTER V. 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 


HE moral evidence is drawn from the existence of con- 
science and the facts of the moral system of the 
world. It includes the reality of man’s moral nature and 
all the indications of an intended conformity of the 
race to immutable principles of righteousness. This evi- 
dence might be regarded as a branch of the teleological, 
as it traces a conformity in the ethical constitution of man 
and. the world to the high ends of character and blessed- 
ness. It exhibits the highest range of final cause, for the 
lofty ends for which the whole system of inferior nature 
exists. But it deserves specific attention, as a particular 
proof, completing and crowning all the other evidences. 

The facts on which the reasoning here proceeds are 
very large and impressive, and when grouped so as to ex- 
hibit their true and necessary meaning, their testimony 
becomes unmistakable. It will be enough for us to look 
at this evidence in the three chief forms into which it 
naturally falls. 

1. Directly from the existence and action of conscience 
in man. Concerning this the following points must be 
noted: 

(1) Whatever name may be given to this power, whether 
called “conscience” or the “‘ moral sense,” or the “ moral 
faculty,” or viewed as a complex of different powers, its 


existence as an integral part of the human constitution is 
206 


i 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 207 


unquestionable. It is a part of man’s personality. In 
various degrees of development it is universal. In all 
ages and all tribes it has shown itself in asserting the dis- 
tinction between right and wrong, affirming obligation to 
do the one and avoid the other, and declaring the reality of 
duty and responsibility. In proportion as man is elevated, 
and the faculties which belong essentially to his nature 
are developed, this faculty —if it is to be so called — 
becomes clearer in its discernments, and stronger in its 
imperatives. Its existence is witnessed to in the earliest 
literatures of the race, in the language of every nation, in 
all law with its penalties, and all love with its rewards. 
In the highest culture into which the best progress has 
brought humanity, and in the latest analyses which science 
has attempted of the human constitution, conscience 
remains, not as a diminished, but a more prominent and 
impressive fact. The very latest speculations, instead of 
denying its existence, have felt obliged to offer explana- 
tions of it. Evolution wrestles with the fact, and offers 
its “‘data of ethics.” Even materialism talks of morality, 
while denying its essential basis of free-will or self-deter- 
mining personality. In some measure every man finds in 
his own mind a necessary and ineradicable distinction 
between right and wrong, and a conviction of an “ ought” 
and “ ought not” for himself and others. As a rational 
being, with faculties of knowledge, sensibility, and choice, 
he knows himself to be a moral agent, amenable to laws 
of right, out from under which there is no escape. He 
cannot cease to hold himself or others responsible. - This 
cApacity for moral distinctions, with its high imperative to 
seek the right, is the final characteristic of human per- 


sonality. 


208 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


(2) Its authority does not depend on any particular 
view of the nature of conscience. It is true that some 
accounts of it tend to unsettle its value for the moral life 
and weaken its testimony to the existence of immutable 
moral law. But after all fair reductions are made, enough 
remains to constitute a most unquestionable ethical author- 
ity, somehow or other established in man’s constitution. 
There is no good reason to doubt the substantial correct- 
ness of the view which holds the distinction of right and 
wrong as a necessary idea of reason, and which looks on 
conscience as the reason’s necessary perception of the 
moral quality of the actions of free agents, as conformed 
or not to the relations and perceived ends of being. It is, 
undoubtedly, fundamentally intellectual, and its action 
consists in directly perceiving, in clearer or more imperfect 
way and according to the light enjoyed, this quality of 
right or wrong and the consequent obligation. Its fune- 
tion is not creative, but perceptive, of the moral relation 
it discerns, and of the duty which arises in and from it. 
The moral emotions, according to the psychological law 
under which the mental sensibilities are awakened only by 
knowing, follow and blend with this perception of moral 
quality and the obligation it involves. This view is 
adequately supported by the best established facts of 
psychology. 

But even on a lower view of conscience — that, for 
instance, which represents the moral judgments as the 
product of circumstances and training, or that which, in 
the teaching of materialistic evolution, interprets them as 
“the results of accumulated experiences of utility, grad- 
ually organized and inherited”—the fact of a sense of 
moral obligation and responsibility remains. The fact, 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 209 


with all its well known elements, is independent of any 
theory of explanation. Conscience does not cease to 
judge, or to hold men responsible to its discriminations, 
because men speculate about its origin or progressive 
development. It does not withdraw or tone down its 
claims, when the air is full of voices trying to show that 
it should not be so imperative. Unless man ceases to be 
man and falls out of his intrinsic personality, he must, day 
by day, confront the reality of moral distinctions, asserting 
themselves by an inexorable necessity of his reason, and 
holding him to them as supreme law for his life. And it 
is exceedingly interesting to notice that the latest view, 
as formulated by materialistic evolutionism, so far from 
teaching the downfall and disappearance of ethical law 
from man’s nature, forecasts a future development of it 
continually toward the ideal standard of absolute or per- 
fect morality. Even on these lower theories, therefore, 
the essential phenomena of conscience remain as facts to 
be accounted for. And whatever hypothesis may be 
framed in explanation of its genesis and development, it 
shows at least a most wonderful adaptation to the endow- 
ment and highest exaltation of man. If, indeed, a process. 
of evolution by molecular mechanics and organic differen- 
tiation has not only developed from a chaos of atoms a 
world of intelligence and rational order, but enthroned a 
law of righteousness for the welfare of the race, it becomes. 
the supreme exhibition of the teleological principle and its. 
sovereignty for the whole system of things. 

We are not required, however, nor even permitted, to. 
interpret the conscience after any of these lower theories. 
Probably no more signal failures are anywhere to be 


found than the attempts to account for the realities in the 
14 


210 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


moral perceptions by the accidental training of cireum- 
-stances or in the experiences of utility and pleasure 
organized into permanent approval or rejection by a proc- 
ess of materialistic evolution. The idea of right is uni- 
versally known to be generically distinct and different 
from that of utility, and nothing but confusion of thought 
can ever dream that they can be counted the same. To 
treat the distinction of right and wrong as the same as 
the distinction between utility and inutility, or between 
pleasure and discomfort, is not to account for moral dis- 
tinctions, but to deny them. There is indeed a close 
relation between rightness and utility; but the real and 
logical order is, not that an action is right because it is 
useful, but it is useful because it is right. The con- 
science-perception discovers the right, irrespective of the 
question of utility or pleasure. In the distinction, there- 
fore, between right and wrong, written ineffaceably in 
man’s reason and irreducible to any other quality, there is 
found an enthroned law of obligation and responsibility. 
The reality of this law requires a moral lawgiver as the 
framer of his nature. 

(3) The force of this is not annulled, but rather con- 
firmed, by the diversity of the judgments of conscience, 
when the moral distinction comes to be applied to ques- 
tions of duty in the relations of life. 

For, jirst, the distinction is found to persist in the face 
of the greatest contrariety of judgment as to its particu- 
lar applications. The law of imperative to the right 
may be real and inexorably authoritative, and yet in 
the practical relations of life men may find it difficult to 
determine the particular thing that is right. In regard 
to all the great fundamental ethical qualities, in their 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 211 


abstract conception, the conscience of the race has one 
voice round the globe and through all centuries. But 
as particular duty arises out of the relations in which 
men stand, the correct perception of it is dependent on 
a true knowledge of all the relations concerned. Each 
special relation develops its own moral obligation. Every 
set of circumstances imposes its peculiar moral demands. 
What is right in some relations is wrong in others. 
. But the point to be observed, as the proof of the en- 
thronement of a moral law within man, is that however 
men may vary in the judgments which apply it, they 
never for a moment doubt, or can doubt, that the law of 
right should in fact be applied. Amid all the differing 
judgments of conscience, it still judges; and the one 
judgment that is never withdrawn and from which there is 
no dissent, is the supreme authority of the moral idea or 
ethical law. 

Secondly, like every other power of the mind, it is 
capable of different degrees of development. We have 
no mental faculties independent of training. They are 
all dependent on their right education for their true 
action and full service. They are often left almost wholly 
incompetent for their office. Mankind exhibit stages of 
development from the brutish degradation of savage tribes 
to the fine discriminations of the Christian philosopher. 
Ignorance of the realities of nature and the true rela- 
tions of life, of the constitution of the world and of the 
laws which express its principles and purposes, must nec- 
essarily affect the correctness of men’s perceptions of 
duty. Since obligations are developed by relations, igno- 
rance or misapprehension of these cannot but confuse 
the application of the ethical law. Conscience can apply 


212 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


its intuitional distinctions only in the light that is af- 
forded it in the knowledge enjoyed. In this part of its 
work it is by no means infallible. It would be exceed- 
ingly absurd to suppose that in the aggregate of man’s 
finite and fallible faculties, this one should be asked to 
be, in its entire office under all conditions of mental de- 
velopment, above the possibility of being misled. When 
the fogs of ignorance darken and chill the whole soul, 
or when the general faculties of information have given 
error instead of truth, as to the facts in human life 
and its relations, the conscience must be almost help- 
less in discriminating the practical application of the 
principle of rectitude. It must have light. It must 
have its proper development. But still—and this is 
the point to be observed—the conscience, even in its 
most misguided judgments, continues to assert a nec- 
essary law of distinction between right and wrong, and of 
the legitimate supremacy of the right. In the very 
structure of his constitution man is framed into a moral 
system. He finds himself amenable to a law which is not 
the product of his will, but which is irrevocably imposed 
upon him as supreme for all his choices. All this testifies 
to the existence of a Lawgiver writing the high impera- 
tives to righteousness and duty in man’s inmost nature. 
(4) Man’s moral nature thus connects him with a moral 
system established by the determining cause of all. The 
reasoning is well put by Thomas Erskine: “ When I at- 
tentively consider what is going on in my conscience, the 
chief thing forced on my notice is, that I find myself face 
to face with a purpose — not my own, for I am often con- 
scious of resisting it, but which dominates me and makes 
itself felt as ever present, as the very root and reason of 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 213 


my being. . | . This consciousness of a purpose concern- 
ing me, that I should be a good man, right, true, and un- 
selfish, is the first firm footing I have in the region of 
religious thought; for I cannot dissociate the idea of a 
purpose from that of a purposer, and I cannot but identify 
this purposer with the Author of my being and the Being 
of all beings; and further, I cannot but regard His pur- 
pose toward me as the unmistakable indication of His 
own character.” * 

We may put this proof, in brief, in this way: Human 
personality is not of itself. It is notoriously limited, has 
a beginning, developing out of darkness into time and 
space, gradually waking up to self-consciousness and self- 
government; and plainly has not prescribed for itself the 
laws of its being —this law of moral obligation. It finds 
it in itself as given. The law of duty in the ethical per- 
ception, the imperative to right, must come from a source 
back of itself, binding human freedom to righteousness. 
The law, therefore, necessarily points back to the creative 
power that, as Lawgiver, has wrought it into mans con- 
stitution and evermore reveals through it His existence 
and sovereignty. 

2. From the existence of a moral administration over 
the world. The evidences of this are found in the history 
of men and nations and the experiences of human life. It 
is universally admitted that by an established relation 
between actions and their consequences the movement of 
the natural system of the world becomes a government of 
men by law. Consequences are not fortuitous, or in 
chaotic series, but are so united to their causes that they 
may be anticipated, and so either incurred or avoided. 


ag Spiritual Order, and Other Papers, p. 47. See Theism, by Flint, 
p. 402. 


a 
214 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


They thus become rewards and punishments — fore-an- 
nounced penalties directing men to that which will give 
them welfare and happiness. It is indisputable, also, that 
this natural administration is fundamentally moral —i.e., 
its principle is to reward the right and punish the wrong. 
It is not maintained, indeed, that the world exhibits this 
moral administration in complete form or a perfect adjust- 
ment of recompense to virtue or vice. That is not the 
fact as actually observed. Righteousness is not always 
seen fully rewarded, nor crime justly punished. We can- 
not affirm, from observed facts alone, that this world shows 
a perfect moral government. Indeed, by reason of our 
but limited view of the relations of moral agents and 
their actions, we are incompetent to decide on the perfec- 
tion of such administration. But what is unquestionable 
is that it presents an essentially moral system in the 
interest of righteousness. 

This is practically involved and secured through the 
moral nature given to man. By the force of this every 
man is necessitated to hold himself and others as under 
obligation to truth, justice, love, and all the great prin- 
ciples of righteousness. Thus a moral force is at once 
started and enthroned for the regulation of individuals 
and society. This force from conscience is met by the 
objective moral relations of which it is adapted to 
secure the fulfilment. It is a most impressive fact, too, 
that the natural law of cause and effect has been so 
adjusted as to reward good action and punish deeds of 
vice. The virtuous emotions are made happy; those that 
are vicious are made painful. Wrong deeds wound the 
personal constitution; good ones improve and strengthen 
it. In the inter-human relations this law of effect is, with 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 215- 


equal clearness, arranged on the side of righteousness. 
The whole system of human government and law, which is. 
part of the natural system, is framed into the moral con- 
ception. Society punishes vice because it is injurious, 
and rewards virtue because it is beneficial. These effects 
make it the interest of society to favor righteous conduct 
as such, and to repress wrong as essentially undesirable. 

Thus, though recompense is not found meted out per- 
fectly according to deserts, yet the administration of the 
world is plainly seen to be on the side of right. Whatever 
imperfections may appear, there is not the faintest evi- 
dence to show that it is any part of the plan of the world’s 
government to punish what is good because it is good, or 
to give advantages to wrong because it is wrong. 

The moral constitution of the world, with an administra- 
tive organization on the principles of moral law, is well 
mirrored in history. Responsibility is one of the most com- 
prehensive, serious, indubitable facts disclosed in the records. 
of the race. It has turned history into drama, exhibiting 
crimes and criminals coming under judgment. Its startling 
realities led the ancients to enthrone a Nemesis for the- 
earth. They have led thoughtful minds to speak of “God 
in History.” So clearly do the conscience and the realities. 
of a moral system reveal a moral governor, that even those 
who are inclined to break away from commonly accepted 
truth and hide a personal God from view or recognition, 
are yet constrained to concede the necessary existence of 
“the enduring power, not ourselves, which makes for 


*1 That this “power” cannot be simply a. 


righteousness. 
fortuitous “stream of tendency,” as it has been called, is 


evident from the discriminating way in which the tenden-- 


1 Matthew Arnold: Literature and Dogma, p. 48. 


216 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


cies of actions are adjusted to the moral principle, good 
effects from right, and punitive from bad, deeds. At best, 
“tendencies” express only an observed order 9f effects, 
and the real “ power that makes for righteousness” must 
be in an ordaining cause behind the effects. The moral 
principle on which the administration proceeds reveals a 
Moral Governor. 

3. From the relation between the moral law and the 
happiness of men. This form of the moral evidence was 
developed by Kant, and was felt by him to be adequate 
ground for belief in the existence of God. The moral law 
is viewed as an original and unconditional command, mani- 
festing itself within men as a “categorical imperative.” 
Its authority is established in its own command. The 
recognition of this authority appears as a sense of duty. 
Man finds himself under obligation to the moral idea. The 
reasoning may be put into brief form as follows: We 
evidently exist for two ends—morality and happiness. 
We are bound to the moral law by an imperative that 
allows no dissent. It commands formally, irrespective of 
all consequences. We are also bound to happiness, by 
adaptations, desires, and capacities for it. Beyond our 
own happiness, this moral law obliges us earnestly and 
steadily to seek the happiness of others, as the chief 
natural good appointed for them. But these two ends 
to a great degree fail to coincide. They are not found to 
be in such practical harmony as to allow full realization 
and success in both directions. We find ourselves power- 
less to reach the aims that our nature imposes on us. 
Following the behests of the moral law, we fall short of 
gaining for ourselves and others the happiness for which 
nature has adapted men. Hence we are compelled by an 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 217 


act of moral faith or the practical reason to assume, the 
existence of a moral Author and Governor of the universe 
and a future state, for an ultimate reconciliation of the 
appointments that appear in our nature. This is required 
to justify the moral imperative, as not commanding in 
contradiction of man’s chief good." 

These three distinct lines of reasoning from the aggre- 
gate of facts in the moral constitution concur to the same 
conclusion. The reality of the moral system is too large 
a phenomenon in the world, and exhibits too impressively 
the working of an intelligent purpose toward the loftiest 
ends of human excellence and welfare, to be attributed 
either to chance or simply physical law. The sphere of its 
results is one lifted too high above the range of material 
movement and relations to be explained except in connec- 
tion with a rational system whose laws come from an 
ordaining moral Intelligence. Science knows of no prop- 
erties of matter, no collocation of atoms, as equivalent to 
the moral idea and the imperative to righteousness. It 
has discovered no “potencies” of mere matter for the 
origination of the ethical law, so high above the grade of its 
blind interactions — this law of the sphere of freedom out 
of a sphere that knows no freedom. No satisfactory solu- 
tion of the great facts of the moral system, in which man 
comes to his crown in the possibilities and requirement of 
moral worth, has yet been given or appears possible, except 
in the predetermining creatorship of a righteous God. 


Here we close this brief survey of the natural evidences 
of the existence of God. It remains only to summarize — 
them, so as to bring them in a connected view. 


1 See Ueberweg's History of Philosophy (Charles Scribner & Co.), Vol. II, p. 185. 


218 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


1. A very strong presumption of the divine existence 
arises from the universality of some idea of God, foreing 
itself, in some form or other, into the belief of all ages 
and all tribes; from a like universal religious instinct, 
showing a natural and profound adjustment of the human 
constitution to worship, a deep necessity for God in the 
aptitudes of man’s soul ; from the benign influence of this 
belief upon human life, quickening its sense of duty and 
responsibility, and supplying, in proportion to the correct- 
ness and strength of the faith, the motive force for the 
best development of man’s noblest characteristics and 
interests; and from the fact that all the phenomena and 
mysteries of the world are best explained on the assump- 
tion of the existence of God. It is the only rational solu- 
tion known for many of the most prominent phenomena — 
the most rational solution for all. On the scientifie princi- 
ple which holds a theory verified when it solves all the 
facts, the existence of God becomes thoroughly accred- 
ited. 

2. The necessities of ontological thought afford an- 
other approach to this conclusion. We have an unavoid- 
able knowledge of real existence or being, in our own 
consciousness of self and of objective nature. We have 
also an idea of God, or a divine existence, so spontaneous 
and normal as to be, in truth, a necessary idea. To think 
the thought of God fully and rationally, however, requires 
us to think of Him as an absolute or self-existent being. 
Our knowledge of real existence also compels us to be- 
lieve in self-existent or eternal being. For, knowing that 
something now exists, it is impossible to deny that some- 
thing has always existed. And thus our necessary rational 
thought of God as a self-existent being directly fulfils this 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 219 


ontological necessity of a self-existent being. This line of 
reasoning, however, does not in itself rigidly exclude 
pantheism, or make clear and certain the distinction be- 
tween God and the universe itself. But the further evi- 
dences fully cover this point. 

3. The cosmological inquiry, finding nature in all its 
parts and as a whole both finite and dependent, is com- 
pelled, under the law of causation, to assume an adequate 
cause for it all. The supposition of an absolutely eternal 
series of limited and dependent causes and effects is 
utterly excluded by its being a contradiction in terms. In 
searching back for the cause in this series of effects, the 
demand of the law of causation can never be satisfied 
until a cause is reached which is not itself an effect; that 
is, until a First Cause, a Self-existent, Absolute Cause is 
reached. This draws the line clearly between self-existent 
being and all dependent or begun being. If, therefore, 
. the law of causation is true for the real system of things, 
this finite and dependent universe must demand an inde- 
pendent or self-existent cause. By an inexorable law of 
thought, Absolute Being is the correlate and basis of 
dependent being. 

An absolutely jirst cause, one that is an originating 
force for effects, must be a free cause; and no realm of 
free causation is known except in Mind. This already, in 
cosmological evidence, points to the First Cause as a 
Rational Will. This evidence, therefore, not only requires 
a self-existent First Cause for the universe, but forbids all 
confounding of that Cause with nature itself, or any sim- 
ply impersonal force. 

4. The teleological feature that pervades all nature 
adds overpowering emphasis to the demand for an intelli- 


220 NATURAL THEOLOGY. os 


gent Creator. This characteristic, appearing not only in 
the order and useful adjustments of the universe in its 
aggregate balance and general movement, but in its 
myriads on myriads of distinctly adapted organisms, in 
wonderfully provided perpetuity of succession, in which 
are found, everywhere, the most discriminating predeter- 
minations to sentient welfare and enjoyment, and espe- 
cially in the purposive action of the whole mental realm in 
which nature’s order or gradation comes to its consumma- 
tion and crown, and receives its interpretation —this 
characteristic demands for its solution not only a cause, 
but an adequate cause, an intelligent cause, one of incon- 
ceivably great wisdom and power. The principle of design 
is seen to be coextensive with the highest law of the uni- 
verse. The world appears as a thought, with evidences of 
purpose or intent shining all through it, from its adapted 
atoms, acting like purposely “manufactured articles,” up 
through all the aggregations in which these atoms form 
the cosmos. The correlate of all this thought is a Thinker 
as the Maker of the world. 

It may be admitted that since the world or even the 
universe, however great, is still finite, it does not in itself 
and directly prove an absolutely ivyinite being. No finite 
product can, under the simple principle of causation, dem- 
onstrate an infinite power. This is freely conceded. But 
the value of the argument remains practically the same. 
For it is quite sufficient for all that is sought from it for 
theistic truth, when it proves the existence of an intelli- 
gent Creator of the actual universe. The question whether 
we dare speak of Him as “the Infinite” raises no practi- 
cal difficulty. The theistic inquiry is, primarily, after a 
divine personal First Cause of the universe — our Maker 


THE MORAL EVIDENCE. 221 


and the Maker of all the worlds. It is enough that 
it is legitimate proof of this. Moreover, though the 
universe is indeed finite, yet as it is disclosed, espe- 
cially in astronomical science, extending world on world, 
system on system, in countless constellations through 
illimitable space, beyond all the boundaries that the 
telescope can discern or the imagination conceive, it 
is so great that we need not hesitate to accept as true God 
the Being whose thought and will has given it its exist- 
ence and order. Especially since the cosmological proof, 
under the law of causation, demands for the sum of all 
dependent causes and effects an absolute First Cause, and 
ontological thought spontaneously and necessarily affirms 
the Absolute Being as also infinite. 

5. The last form of evidence, taking up the highest 
range of facts which the constitution of the world pre- 
sents, finds in them impressive confirmation of the theistic 
conclusion. The ethical law in conscience, and the moral 
administration disclosing itself in experience, observation, 
and history, show how the whole system of things culmi- 
nates in an evident purpose in the welfare of man. The 
Creator is shown to be a moral Lawgiver and Ruler. 

6. The theistic evidences are thus, in the fullest sense, 
cumulative. The conclusion rests not on one proof or one 
kind of proof. Pursuing the different lines of reasoning 
here presented, we find them at last uniting in the common 
conclusion. But these are only a few of the possible lines 
of proof. That which is made testifies to its Maker from 
so many points of observation and under so many processes 
that the evidences are endless. They mutually support 
and strengthen each other. Their force is seen and felt 
not in viewing them separately, but in their combination. 


222 NATURAL THEOLOGY. » 


So nature speaks with thousands of voices— with not one 
positive voice of dissent. It is in this consilience of evi- 
dence that we get the proper theistic proof. It is when 
all voices are heard that we get the sublime testimony of 
the universe to its Creator. 


PAST IL 


THE CHARACTER OF GOD— HIS RELATION TO 
THE UNIVERSE. 


ATURAL Theology, as stated in the beginning of this 
discussion, includes an inquiry into the character of 

God, so far as this may be known from reason and nature. 
This part of the subject is here reached. It divides itself 
into two branches — the essential attributes of the Deity, 


and His relation to the universe. 
223 


CHAPTER I. 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 


fh Mica inquiry into the divine attributes is an inquiry 
into those essential qualities or properties by which 
He is indeed God. The various evidences that show that 
God is, show also to some degree what He is. The divine 
attributes, therefore, are those characteristics by which 
the being or essence of God is distinguishable from all 
being that is not God. They are not to be understood as 
mere conceptions of our own which we attribute to God, 
but as realities in the divine nature and activity. Our 
reason does not create them, but apprehends them as they 
are disclosed and reflected from the same sources which 
prove His existence. Most of these attributes have 
already become evident by the facts which exhibit Him as 
the Creator and Lawgiver of the universe. A brief ac- 
count of them will, therefore, suffice. 


I, SELF-EXISTENCE. 


This means that His being is in Himself alone, unde- 
rived and absolute. It denies origination, or dependence 
on prior being. Our idea of self-existence comes out of 
our analysis of the idea of being: Something is, therefore 
something has always been; and if something has always 
been, something must have been self-existent. The proof 
which shows that this necessary self-existence is found in 


God is given in the entire cosmological evidence. The 
24 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 225° 


law of causation demands, for the entire universe as finite 
and dependent, a cause which is not itself an effect. The 
First Cause is necessarily unoriginated. 


II. ETERNITY. 


By this is meant that God neither begins nor ceases to 
be. This is directly involved in His self-existence. Since 
He is the unoriginated, absolute Being, there is no ele- 
ment of contingency in Him, and He is without beginning 
or end. He is the “necessary existence” from eternity 
to eternity. 

III. PERSONALITY. 


The term “personality” covers several united attri- 
butes. In its complete import it denies that the First 
Cause is merely an unconscious, blind, non-intelligent force 
or principle, or that God is the impersonal sum of exist- 
ence. He is a Personal Being. The elements of personal- 
ity are reason or intelligence and free will or self-deter- 
mination. A being that determines his own course in his 
own reason is a person. This, therefore, really includes. 
these two attributes. First, intelligence, seeing its own 
way and the reasons of its own purposes; and secondly, 
Sree will, making and executing its own choices. As 
a person, therefore, God is the Rational, Self-determining 
Energy, the Supreme Reason and the Supreme Power. 

The proofs of this personality begin in the ontological 
evidence which shows that if we think the idea of God 
rationally we must think of Him as the Most Perfect 
Being. This is found in no rank below free intelligence. 
The proof is strengthened through the conclusion of the: 
cosmological reasoning, which discovers a First Cause only 


in mind as an originating will-force. It is confirmed by the- 
15 


226 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


whole force of the teleological evidences which show the 
world to abound in unmistakable marks of adaptive 
thought, requiring intelligence and will in the power that 
has made it. Especially is it proved by the grand phe- 
nomena which appear at the summit of this creation, the 
facts of human mind, with its intelligence, freedom, and 
moral law. Is it possible to conceive of the originative 
cause of human personality, with all its lofty realities, as 
itself something less than a person? Can this human in- 
telligence be due to a cause that has none? This reason 
to unreason? This personality to impersonality? As 
easily may we think of something born out of nothing. 
Human mind is the proof of the divine mind. The myr- 
iad myriad personalities that people the earth and time 
mirror the self-existent personality of the Power from 
which the world has come. 

This accords with the fact that rational will is the 
synonyme of originative power. Will is essential energy. 
Our very idea of power comes out of our consciousness 
of ourselves as exercising will-force. Of originating 
power we have no conception at all apart from person- 
ality. Mind stands to us as the synonyme of genetic 
force. It is, therefore, with great reason that many of 
the acutest thinkers have always regarded all the force 
that appears in the processes of the universe as the move- 
ment of will-power. The efforts of scientists to show 
matter itself to be intrinsic and essential energy have 
not proved satisfactorily successful. The irresolvable 
inertia that everywhere marks it is greatly in the way of 
the attempt. But even should it be so maintained, mat- 
ter, by the peculiar properties of its atoms, appears to be 
_a constituted existence and must have its attractions and 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 227 


repulsions from the will of the Maker. Nature’s forces 
manifest themselves as modes of motion; but the foun- 
tain of the power is discoverable only in the rational 
will in which the self-existent Being is both efficient and 
final cause for the creation of the universal system. Per- 
sonality, therefore, is one of the great essential attributes 
of God. This is the truth about which, in a peculiar 
degree, all correct theism turns. As human personality 
is the supreme fact in man’s nature, the one in which he 
comes into free power and all his highest distinctions, so 
the divine personality is preéminently that in which God 
is the Highest Perfection of being. 


IV. SPIRITUALITY. 


This is closely allied to personality. It concerns the 
essence of God, and includes both a denial and an affirma- 
tion. It denies that He is matter; it affirms that He is 
Mind or Spirit. Intelligence, reason, will, are known to 
us only as functions of mind. The same evidences that 
sustain belief in His personality are evidences of His 
spirituality. He is the absolute Mind, whose thought 
and purpose illuminate the movements of the universe. 


V. UNITY. 


God is one and alone. This means that He is not one 
of a class. There is not another to constitute a class. 
Each man is numerically one, and has the unity of a per- 
sonal existence. But there are many individual men. 
The unity affirmed of God is that He is one and alone. 
There is only one God. 

The evidences of this unity come: 1. In the cosmo- 
logical argument which demands an absolute First Cause 
for the world. An absolute First Cause must be one. 


228 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


2. In the attribute of personality. A person is a unity. 
3. In the unity of the universe. Everywhere, on earth 
and in all the astronomical systems, the forces, laws, 
movements, and order constitute a singing harmony, 
One thought pervades the universe as an immeasurable 
organism. All worlds seem to respond to the same law 
of gravitation. The light from distant bodies, through 
the spectrum, shows the same qualities. The unity of 
the universe proves the unity of the Thinker, of whose 
thought and will it is an expression. This unity of the 
structure of nature may, indeed, be said to prove only a 
unity of counsel. And on the principle of simple induc- 
tion from the unity of nature, it must be confessed, it 
could reach no further. But viewed in connection with 
the preceding evidences, it carries strong confirmatory 
force. 
VI. INFINITY. 

The term “infinite,” in this connection, must not 
be confounded with “the infinite” of abstract thought, 
conceived as the necessary “correlate” of the finite. 
That is a concept, and stands for a conceptual exist- 
ence. But the term here is not used to express a 
thought-product, but to designate an attribute of a real 
Being. It is properly negative in form and in idea, signi- 
fying not finite, unlimited. When we speak of God as 
infinite we mean that His being cannot be brought under 
any limitations of space or time, nor can any of His attri- 
butes be classed as finite. The word denies imperfection 
of any kind or in any respect. In this peculiarity of 
expressing a negative predicate, the word “absolute ” is 
like the term “infinite.” When we say of God that He 
is absolute, our affirmation is that He is not dependent 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 229 


on any other being for His existence, nature, or activity. 
He is absolute as the self-existent First Cause. 

It would be a fallacious process to convert these nega- 
tives directly into positives. And yet, if we will think 
carefully, we will perceive that there is necessarily a posi- 
tive content included in the conception of these relations 
or attributes, in that the terms only deny limitations. 
The positive content —of being or relations — underlies 
the denial of limitation, and is the recognized basis for 
the distinction pointed out in the attribute. Thus this 
negative attribute of infinity, asserted in view of already 
given proofs of the divine existence, warrants the positive 
conception of the full perfection of God’s nature and 
power. 

The natural evidence of this infinity comes both from 
the rational necessity of conceiving of God as the Perfect 
Being, and from the practical boundlessness of the uni- 
verse, transcending the utmost reach of the imagination. 
As mirrored in the immensity of the universe, the Creator 
must be recognized as infinite. 


Vil. A GROUP OF ATTRIBUTES INVOLVED IN THE 
DIVINE PERSONALITY AS INFINITE. 


1. Ommniscience. This expresses the action of the 
divine intelligence as infinite. God knows Himself and 
all created and possible being and relations. Our 
necessary conception of the knowledge of such an intelli- 
gence includes such features as these: (1) It is intuitive, 
God knows by an immediate view. Man must find truth 
through extended processes and hesitating inferences. An 
infinite intelligence sees it all at once and directly. (2) It 
is certain, There can be nothing probable to it. There 


230 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


are no unknown contingencies to bring in any element of 
uncertainty. (3) It must be infallible. Its directness and 
infinity exclude mistake. 

2. Omnipresence. An infinite Being is everywhere. 
No limit of space can be set for Him. This omnipresence, 
in Natural Theology, rests not only on this necessary impli- 
cation of thought, but also on the fact that “in every 
part and place of the universe with which we are ac- 
quainted, we perceive the exercise of a power which we 
believe, mediately or immediately, to proceed from the 
Deity.” He may well be said to be wherever He is seen 
to be working. 

3. Omnipotence. Power is an attribute of the divine 
Will to which no limits can be affirmed, so far as objects 
may come within His choice. He is omnipotent for what- 
ever He wills. It is impossible for us, in view of other 
necessary divine attributes, to conceive of self-contradic- 
tions, wrong, or other things sometimes said to be impos- 
sible to Him, as ever coming within the range of His 
choice. But for the objects of His will His power is 
omnipotent. The creation and preservation of the uni- 
verse are the expressions of this power. It is true, the 
creation of a finite universe cannot be held as calling for 
the exertion of an absolutely infinite power, yet before the 
impression of power this universe gives to our minds, the 
term “omnipotence” stands fully justified. 

4. Illimitable Wisdom. Wisdom means a quality 
somewhat different from knowledge, as it expresses the 
action of intelligence in choosing the best ends and accom- 
plishing them through the proper means. Natural Theol- 
ogy affirms this attribute, as involved in the personality 
of the divine Being. In this personality He is the infinite 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 231 


Reason. This excludes the unreasonableness in which 
want of wisdom consists. Supreme reason is supreme 
wisdom. This attribute, as thus made apparent in the 
very conception of the divine nature, is reflected from all 
the impressive phenomena which have formed the ground 
of the teleological reasoning. 


VIII. HOLINESS. 


By this word we express the character of God under a. 
view required by all the facts of the moral evidence. It 
signifies that the divine Will is eternally and perfectly 
consonant with intrinsic righteousness, and that this prin- 
ciple of righteousness, under which the moral system of 
the world has evidently been constituted, expresses the 
unchangeably holy nature of the Creator. Our reason 
compels us to think of this as a necessary attribute of a 
perfect Being; and the ethical law, to which we find our 
nature inexorably bound, is justly regarded as reflecting 
the character of the Lawgiver to our moral faculties. 
God’s nature is perfect moral excellence, and His free will 
is the action of eternal righteousness. 


IX. GOODNESS. 


Love and benevolence are synonymous terms for this. 
The idea intended to be set forth is that God delights to 
communicate the highest good to His creation. Benevo- 
lence is wishing the well-being of all. Love is a disposi- 
tion to do good. We speak of this as “goodness.” 
Employing it to designate an attribute of God, we con- 
ceive of this goodness as perfect. But it is in connection 
with this attribute that the main theistic difficulties have 
been alleged and felt. For, amid the prevalent, clear, 
and assuring indications of the divine goodness, there are 


252 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


discernible various contradictory appearances; some of 
them of such positive character and complex relations 
as to constitute profound and positively insoluble prob- 
lems. The endless strife between optimism and pessimism 
—asserting, on the one hand that the world is the best 
possible, and on the other, that it is the worst possible — is 
constant téstimony to the grave difficulties which certain 
phenomena of the natural constitution offer for solution. 
And yet when the phenomena which suggest these diffi- 
culties are examined in their last analysis and broadest 
relations, enough of explaining light shines through them 
to render it credible that, could we understand them fully, 
they would be seen to be well chosen parts of a benevo- 
lent whole. 

1. The evidences on which we affirm this attribute are 
chiefly these: 

(1) The great ethical principle which, as enthroned in 
our nature, requires us to believe our Creator to be right- 
eous and holy, involves also the necessity of His goodness. 
The law of love is embraced in the supreme law of right- 
eousness and holiness. The conception of right, taken in 
its fulness, includes love. For love is part of our highest 
duty. It belongs to our supreme obligation. No man 
exhibits full moral excellence, if he malignantly seeks the 
misery of others or is selfishly indifferent to their welfare. 
The law of love is required by the law of right. In bind- 
ing us to the law of good-will, our Creator has forbidden 
us to think of Him as indifferent to the principle of good- 
ness. This principle is a completing element in righteous- 
ness itself. God’s very righteousness, therefore, obliges 
us to think of Him as acting in love. Whatever may be 
the aspects which the constitution of things presents, our 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 233 


moral nature prohibits us from conceiving of Him as indif- 
ferent to the happiness of his creation or appointing its 
order without respect to its highest good. The whole 
force, therefore, of the moral argument for the proof of a 
righteous Lawgiver and Ruler, requires also this attribute 
of goodness. 

(2) The wisdom of God, in our necessary conception 
of the infinite reason or the divine personality, compels us 
to believe in His goodness. As wisdom is concerned with 
the choice of ends and the ways of their accomplishment, 
it precludes the choice of either moral or physical evil as 
anend. It excludes all want of goodness from its action. 
Want of goodness is actual unreasonableness, Infinite 
wisdom cannot be in league with malevolence. Infinite 
reason cannot but prefer the happiness of creatures rather 
than their misery. The wisdom of God requires His love. 

(3) The general tenor of the arrangement, order, and 
organization of creation clearly testifies to His goodness. 
The prevailing action of undisturbed, unperverted nature 
is good, and reveals a benevolent intention. Goodness, as 
well as wisdom, is seen in the exact adaptation of all the 
parts of our physical organization to their place and office 
in the composite structure; in the adjustment of the 
entire organism to the surrounding world; in the fitting of 
the body to the nature and service of the mind; and in the 
precise suitableness of the mental faculties to the ends of 
physical, intellectual, and moral well-being. Bounteous 
provision is made for the needs and happiness of all sen- 
tient existence, and the world abounds in happy life. 
Everywhere there is “a felicitous fulfilment.of function in 
living things,” and an exuberance of means of enjoyment 
is poured around all conscious being. 


234 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


What is specially to be observed, as Paley has justly 
pointed out, is that “the Deity has superadded pleasure 
to animal sensations, beyond what was necessary for any 
other purpose, or when the purpose, so far as it was nee- 
essary, might have been effected by the operation of pain.” 
Nourishment might have been supplied without the pleas- 
ure provided for in the specialized organs of taste. Motion 
might have been left unattended by the exhilaration and 
enjoyment it actually supplies. Every function of animal 
life, in uninjured and healthy condition, goes on, not only 
painlessly, but with a positive pleasure as something beyond 
the merely functional requirement. In the adaptations of 
the human constitution this feature is peculiarly distinct. 
It is a large fact in our happiness every day. All our special 
senses have been filled with this “superadded” good. 
Beginning with the fundamental form of touch, each 
sense-perception serves for pleasure in addition to utility. 
Through hearing and sight particularly, enjoyment is 
poured richly into every human experience. 

But, highest of all, the constitution of the mind shows 
this benevolent intent. The intellectual powers exhibit a 
marvellous adaptation to the discovery of useful and glad- 
dening truth. The reality and value of this adjustment are 
seen in the affluent treasures of general knowledge and sci- 
ence which have put all the experience of the past and the 
varied mighty forces of nature at man’s service for utility 
and happiness. The triumphs of mind in the realm of mod- 
ern knowledge have been magnifying the evidences of the 
divine goodness in constituting the powers of the intellect. 
In the emotional nature another realm of enjoyment is 
provided — the rich realm of love, friendship, the endlessly 
varied attachments of human souls in the fellowship of 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 235 


life. No one can think of the pure sweet joy thus pro- 
vided and given to the world, without seeing that love 
opened this fountain, The human sensibility is a special 
provision for pleasure. Had this been made a blank, life 
would be poor indeed. Through the intellect and the emo- 
tions moreover, the Creator has furnished a distinct per- 
ception and appreciation of the beautiful with which the 
universe of nature is everywhere adorned. This lofty 
esthetic endowment looks like a provision made solely for 
the sake of enjoyment, an unnecessary outburst of the 
Creator’s kindness. And over against it, as a gift corre- 
spondent to the inner faculty, is an illimitable range of 
provided beauty in the world, from the beauty of the 
snowflake, the crystal forms of frozen moisture on a 
window pane, or the petals of the way-side flower, to the 
beauty of the starry sky or the symmetry of far-off cosmic 
systems. The poetry of all ages and lands has tasked its 
powers and tried its highest arts in attempts to express 
this universe of beauty and delight. There seems to be 
no end for beauty at all except the improvement and hap- 
piness of the rational creation. In the constitution, also, 
of the human powers into free personality and moral 
agency, and the organization of the race under moral law, 
the benevolent purpose is conspicuously clear. For it is 
only by an orderly fulfilment of the proper offices in the 
inter-human relations between the individuals of the race 
that man can reach his highest good, whether that good be 
viewed as consisting in character or happiness, or in both 
in indivisible union. That in every man’s conscience, as 
the summit point of his nature, there is inscribed an 
imperative to righteousness and love, is, indeed, a crown- 
ing evidence of the Creator’s benevolent aim. 


236 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


Thus, everywhere through creation, in the minutest 
structures and most extended relations, these adaptations 
and provisions are found codrdinated not only to necessi- 
ties, but to further and distinct ends of welfare and enjoy- 
ment. They are not simply “conditions of existence,” 
but clear provisions for happiness. These things have, in 
all ages and in every place, struck and impressed thought- 
ful minds as reflecting the goodness of God. 

2. But the difficulties in the way of this broad conclu- 
sion must be stated. We do not include in these the 
existence of moral evil or sin, for the reason that this is 
produced by man’s perverse use of his freedom, and exists 
only by contradiction of the divine will, as testified in the 
conscience. - The position in which moral evil thus stands, 
as condemned and forbidden by the highest law the 
Creator has put in man’s reason, makes it at least as avail- 
able for the vindication as for the questioning of His 
goodness. But the evils which perplex us here are the 
natural evils which appear in the constitution of things. 
The difficulties are such as these: 

(1) Organisms are not all perfect. Many of them are 
of low order, put together apparently without much 
regard to convenience or comfort. They are deficient in 
strength and vital force. At best they are liable to 
derangement from accident or age. 

(2) The adjustment between organisms and environ- 
ment is not absolutely perfect. This is so with respect to 
man as well as the lower animals. There are antagonisms 
in the material forces that smite in injury, disease, and 
death. The air carries poisons as well as health. The 
food that is taken from Nature’s hand often covers the 
cause of pain. At best, the physical powers without, 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 237 


which embrace and support the organism, often beat upon 
it in pitiless disregard of its comfort, and it is only a ques- 
tion of time when they will lay it in the dust. The 
friendly relation of the environment is not unqualified. 
The adaptation is not perfect. 

(3) Even as to physical nature itself the world presents 
some features which do not seem to be the best possible, 
It is girdled with zones either painfully hot or distressingly 
cold; it has vast tracts of barren desert or wastes of rocks; 
it is shaken by destructive earthquakes and burned with 
outpoured subterranean fires; it is swept by tempests and 
beaten by the lightnings and hail of the sky. The air is 
loaded often with miasma and carries the pestilence on its 
wings. These and like things are alleged as proof that 
the world has not been made with either perfect wisdom 
or perfect goodness. It has been arranged, it is some- 
times claimed, in reckless disregard of the safety, comfort, 
and happiness of the sentient creation. 

(4) But the chief arraignment of the goodness of 
nature’s determining cause has been drawn from the exist- 
ence in it of an order of warfare of life on life. We are 
pointed to indisputable facts which show that from the 
earliest animal life, traceable by geology, till now the 
earth has been a scene of death and carnage. Living 
creatures have always been pursuing and devouring one 
another. Many of the organs whose structure the natural- 
ist so justly admires are simply offensive and defensive 
arms, instruments of attack and resistance. To a large 
degree life is kept up by death, and through the violence 
of prey. In each of the great classes of animals there are 
some species that feed on others. There are insects of 
prey, reptiles of prey, fishes of prey, and quadrupeds of 


238 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


prey. They are provided with instruments of seizure and 
slaughter. We find the skilfully adapted talon, and fang, 
and poison. The continuance and progress of animal life 
on the earth seems thus to be a triumph of power over 
helplessness, a survival of the strongest, not alone as 
against the inanimate force of environment, but in this 
ceaseless battle for food. Man himself carries on the sys- 
tem — killing for his food whatever animals suit his taste. 
From the worm up to man is seen the great law of the 
violent destruction of living creatures. It seems to have 
been organized into the plan of nature. 

3. It may not be possible to clear up all difficulties on 
this subject, but the following considerations will go far 
toward relieving them. 

(1) There may be both wisdom and goodness in ar- 
rangements which yet fail to show perfect wisdom and 
goodness. Were it proved that the distribution of heat 
and cold, land and water, rocks and deserts and fertile 
plains, now marking the condition of the earth, is not the 
very best, it would not thereby be shown that there is no 
wisdom or goodness at all in it. Every creature in the 
world and every provision on earth is finite, and the finite 
must always have some limitations. It is always possible 
to conceive of something more perfect than any finite 
thing. A finite good may yet be a real good. 

As to the order of the physical world and the grade of 
organisms, this asserted defect is in truth but relative 
perfection. We dare not translate it into terms of suffer- 
ing or a ground of complaint, unless we deny the right of 
the finite to exist. Moreover, the thing complained of 
may .be found to serve a positive good. The Alpine 
glaciers which encumber vast tracts of land are found to 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 239 


contribute irrigation and fertility to the far-off valleys. 
The mountains which, with their wilderness of cliff and 
forest, withdraw so much of every continent from the use 
of the husbandman, are, however, important factors in 
directing the atmospheric currents, distributing the show- 
ers of the sky, breaking the force of storms, and spread- 
ing some gifts from sea to sea. In respect to arrange- 
ments in the sphere of material existence, we need to be 
careful lest our hasty judgments foolishly deny relative or 
limited good to be good at all. 

(2) There may be both wisdom and goodness where we 
can see neither — where, indeed, there seems to us to be 
the contrary. For we are very imperfect judges of a sys- 
tem so vast as this universe —filling such space, progress- 
ing through such eons. Butler, in his great Analogy, has 
long taught men the rashness and folly of dogmatically 
criticising either the part or the whole of this imperfectly 
comprehended scheme.’ The science of every year is but 
throwing the boundaries of the universe into wider and 
more untraceable relations, and while adding to our 
knowledge, adding also to our conviction of the transcend- 
ence of these relations. We can survey but a very small 
part of this universe of world-systems and nature’s prog- 
ress, and understand only imperfectly the little of it that 
we do see. The parts we see are so related to the past 
and future, and are so connected in their probable bearings 
on what is beyond our vision, that we really see nothing in 
its wholeness or completeness. We see but fragments in 
half-vision or imperfect vision, so that we are very liable 
to mistakes when we venture to sit in judgment on the 
order or plan or wisdom of the creation. Could we survey 


1 Part I, Chap. VII. 


240 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


it all, and comprehend the complex relations of every part 
to every other part, and of all to the whole system, such 
explaining light might be shed upon it all that what is 
now dark and perplexing might become a bright reflection 
of wisdom and love. 

Perhaps it will be said in reply to this, that if we are 
incompetent to declare things to be evil, we are also in- 
competent to declare things to be good. But the two 
sides are not equal, because it is indisputable that the 
world abounds in natural good, and that the evil is ex- 
ceptional; for this is a matter of experience. Indeed, 
according to the prevalent conception of the survival of 
the fittest, a system preponderatingly evil could not per- 
petuate itself through the ages. Progress is said to be 
necessarily in the line of that which is most desirable; 
that is, of natural good. The thought of our day, there- 
fore, concedes that natural good is ascendent in nature. It 
is reasonable, therefore, under these circumstances, not, 
indeed, to deny the existence of evil, but to believe that, 
could we interpret everything in the light of perfect 
knowledge, we would find goodness in many things in 
which we now fail to discover it. 

(3) ‘In by far the greater number of contrivances in 
which design is seen in nature, the design is clearly per- 
ceived to be beneficial.” No one needs any other evidence 
of this than that which presses on him when he looks 
within him and around him, and faces the thousands of 
beneficent adaptations filling the world with comfort and 
happiness. That the prevailing order of nature, and the 
specific purpose and action of nearly all organisms, and 
parts of organisms, are beneficent, is beyond question. 
They are found to be actually adapted to serviceable and 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 241 


useful ends. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every 
thousand functions clearly show a purely kind intent. 
This overwhelming proportion must be considered as fairly 
declaring the Author of nature to be benevolent. The 
presumption becomes, therefore, exceedingly strong that 
the one which carries some perplexing relations is not 
really, but only apparently, inconsistent with His goodness. 

(4) In no place where suffering or pain is found in 
connection with an organism does it appear that pain, for 
its own sake, is the object of the contrivance. It comes 
as incidental to the attainment of the design. There may 
be pain from having teeth, but there is no evidence that 
teeth were created for the purpose of aching. To a very 
large extent even the incidental sufferings have been 
brought on by unnatural or artificial modes of life. It 
would, indeed, require a physical system of steel-like- 
strength to bear unharmed and in painless integrity the 
perverse and violent treatment it receives even under our 
merciful civilization. The organizations are not for the 
sake of pain, but for the useful functions of life and 
enjoyment. Their healthy functions are pleasurable, and 
the suffering which comes with injury or decay only raises 
the question how far goodness must secure limited beings. 
from such injury or decay. The pain, however, inflicted 
on others when animals simply act out the evident intent 
of their provided organization, as in their conflicts with 
one another, cannot, indeed, be interpreted as due to. 
impaired function. Yet it, too, stands as incidental. There 
is pain from the wasp’s sting, the viper’s poison, the 
eagle’s talons, the horse’s hoof; but both the structure 
and the instincts which employ the structure in these 


cases look directly to the ends of defence and self-preser- 
16 


“242 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


vation. We know of no case in which provision is made 
for the infliction of suffering for its own sake. The ends 
which these perplexing organs actually serve, and which we 
must suppose they were meant to serve, are of the highest 
value to the anima!’s own existence. 

(5) The whole difficulty, therefore, so far as concerns 
the order of life below man, is reduced to the fact of 
animal death, especially in the system which includes 
their feeding upon one another. The other points of 
objection, as limitations of natural good, are not found to 
be in direct and necessary contradiction to the divine 
goodness. But the considerations that relieve our minds 
as to them fall short of being a satisfactory explanation 
here. Whether or not a full solution can be given, the 
following circumstances are to be taken into account: 
(a) Physical death, after all, being but another expression 
for temporary life, is in truth only a further feature of the 
limitation of finite existence. It is but the boundary to 
which the natural good is extended. That the life is not 
made everlasting is no disproof of goodness. (6) The life 
of animals of any species whatever, in the duration given 
it, is in the main a life of positive pleasure. Unquestion- 
ably the amount of physical enjoyment far surpasses the 
incidental pains that befall them. (¢) These incidental 
pains come out of the same sensitive organization by 
which they have their capacities and experiences of 
enjoyment. They are a reversal of the action of their 
constitutional endowments for pleasurable sensations. 
(d) A system which would exclude death, would, by nec- 
essarily making each given life everlasting, almost infi- 
nitely diminish the number of individual animals that 
could exist and enjoy life. Under the limitation assigned 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 243 


to individual lives, new generations are forever coming 
into an existence of enjoyment, and the sum of animal 
enjoyment is, probably, much increased by this succession 
of generations. If the animal life is to be considered as 
counting for a pleasure at all, and goodness is at all con- 
cerned in the gift, this goodness is not necessarily im- 
peached by the order which limits individual duration in 
the interest of this endless multiplication of numbers 
through endless succession. (e) The further feature of 
the system, by which the different species of animals 
become food for one another, appears to be part of this 
order under which such multiplication of individuals is 
incaleulably extended. In the perpetual provision of 
food in this way, in addition to the supply in vegetable 
form, there is allowed a more rapid and numerous in- 
crease, in all the ranks from the lowest to the highest. 
The vacated space is quickly filled. The process by 
which the living have food is a process by which still more 
come to live, and the sum of animal enjoyment is made 
greater. (jf) As to the termination of life in this sudden 
and violent way, it is by no means certain that the sum of 
animal suffering is thus increased beyond what it would be 
if life ended only by the slow exhaustion and decay of the 
organizations. We have, indeed, no reason to suppose 
animals incapable of pain, even great pain, but most of 
them are, without doubt, of far duller nervous organ- 
ization than ourselves, many of them probably of very 
slight sensibility, and all of them without any rational 
conception or fear of death; and we must not fall into 
the illusion which measures death to them in the meas- 
ures of human shrinking and sensibility. The instince- 
tive action of timidity and flight, by which they avoid 


244 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


danger, may possibly understand itself as little, and be as 
destitute of real suffering, as other instinetive forces 
which blindly act for self-preservation. Without press- 
ing these facts to any extreme, there is unquestionably 
some abatement to be made from the notion often formed 
of the suffering experienced in the lot of the lower ani- 
mals, especially in connection with their death, At any 
rate, the supposed horrors of fear and apprehension 
attributed to them are probably largely phantoms pro- 
jected from our human experience, and without reality for 
the experiences and acts of their automatic instinct. — 
When their lives are thus ended suddenly, the pain, prob- 
ably of quite inferior grade, is but for a moment. The 
slow action of age and weakness, with protracted discom- 
fort, is excluded. 

These various considerations may not, indeed, remove 
all our perplexity in the face of this feature of nature. 
Though diminished it is not gone—nor turned into genu- 
ine satisfaction. Something of mystery, it must be con- 
fessed, still shadows the fact as it presses itself on our 
view. Nor ought we to be surprised at this. For the 
immense sweep of nature’s plan extends so far beyond 
our vision that the explaining facts and relations, though 
real, may be out of sight. A broader and deeper knowl- 
edge might turn our remaining perplexity into entire and 
positive satisfaction. 

There is a peculiar fact that is, probably, worthy of 
notice and remembrance in this connection. The thing 
which so much offends, and disturbs faith in the divine 
goodness, ceases to offend just where we come into prac- 
tical relation to the system. Men who object to the 
scheme of nature which includes the death of animals 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 245 


for food, have no convictions against it when they them- 
selves are in free and voluntary identification with the 
scheme. The system comes to its fullest measure in 
man’s use of animal food. If it violates goodness in its 
beginnings, it violates it when perfected. Man slays and 
appropriates from the whole animal kingdom whatever he 
can use for his needs and enjoyment. He heads the class 
of carnivora. And the singular thing is that while he is 
following this course in the freedom of his own choice, 
and in the presence of his moral sentiments, he shows no 
signs that he either judges or feels his chosen course as 
intrinsically or in its very nature wrong. That which so 
perplexed him when looked at from afar, among fish, and 
birds, and quadrupeds, when offered to personal use is 
judged and freely accepted as useful and good. His 
appreciative feeling prompts him even to natural grati- 
tude to the Author of nature for the goodness that thus 
furnishes all that adds to the enjoyments of his life. 

We do not recall this relation of men to this system of 
nature, and the silence of their consciences in their volun- 
tary participation in it, as any positive answer to the objec- 
tion which we are considering. It is not proved right by 
an appeal to their compromise with it. Man’s acceptance 
of the system as good for himself falls short of a proof of 
its absolute goodness. But we call attention to it for 
the purpose of reminding that the standpoint from which 
we view a feature of nature may have much to do with 
our capability of judging of its wisdom or goodness. 
Our judgments are modified by our points of observation, 
affording us different degrees of light for correct conclu- 
sion. In the relation in which man knows most about 
this perplexing phenomenon, he objects to it the least. It 


246 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


is hardly consistent for him to hold it as irreconcilable 
with goodness when he approves of it in his own practice. 

(6) Pain and suffering are not necessarily a disproof 
of the Creator’s goodness. They may possibly stand in 
such relation to the whole system of things that they 
mark and exhibit its noblest exaltation. We must recall 
such things as these: (a) They may be part of the essen- 
tial capacity for pleasure. Pleasure may be impossible ex- 
cept in an organization that at the same time allows pain. 
Liability to suffering may be an incident inseparable from 
sensitiveness. The nerve that was made to leap with 
pleasure may thereby become a channel to pain, With 
the gift of sensation rises the dawn of higher being in 
nature’s ascent. (0%) The office of pain is primarily good 
—to warn and restrain from what would injure and 
destroy the organization. Insusceptible to pain, the or- 
ganization would be wrecked. Prof. Flint well says: 
“Painful sensations are only watchful videttes upon the 
outposts of our organism, to warn us of approaching 
danger. Without these the citadel of our life would be 
quickly surprised and taken.”’ (c) Pain is a stimulant 
to exertion, and it is only through exertion that life has 
health and development. The uncomfortable sensations 
of hunger or thirst are stimuli to action necessary to ani- 
mal well-being. Life remains in lowest grades where 
there are no exercising forces of keen hunger or driving 
desire. The measure of sensitiveness becomes the meas- 
ure of development and elevation of life. 

In man, especially, where the heights of created exist- 
ence on the earth are to be reached, where not only phys- 
ical well-being, but intellectual activity and moral excel- 


1 Theism, p. 247. 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 247 


lence are aimed at, the office of sensitiveness seems to 
stand as a lofty endowment, and its service as a training 
and perfecting force becomes conspicuous and great. 
Whatever unexplorable reason may underlie the plan in 
which such a method of development has been appointed 
to him, of the fact itself there can be no doubt. The 
disciplinary, educative, almost creative power of suffering 
is unspeakably great and valuable, and accomplishes, in 
character and welfare, unquestionably benevolent results. 
All the highest things in man’s life, his developed self- 
control, energy, strength of virtue, kindness, beneficence, 
all the qualities which the world admires and extols as 
lifting human nature out of littleness and flatness into real 
grandeur, are gifts of the training in which the sharp expe- 
riences of pain and suffering have contributed their essen- 
tial help. This method of development makes it clearly 
evident that there are loftier elements of well-being for 
man’s nature and design than mere enjoyment or the 
placid repose of exemption from pain. Suffering is not 
a good in itself, but it fulfils a benevolent agency. And 
who can positively affirm that the constitution of the 
world, which permits it to enter as the attendant of the 
high grade of organization capacitating for pleasure, is 
a contradiction to the goodness of nature’s author? 
For aught we know, the system may work out higher 
ends of being and blessedness than could otherwise be 
attained. 

(7) It is worthy of consideration, also, that the liability 
to suffering comes naturally, and perhaps necessarily, 
under the action of good and needed general laws. From 
the earliest times in which men began to penetrate the 
method of nature, it has been understood to accomplish its. 


248 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


results under the operation of fixed and uniform laws. Its 
forces and modes are established in the unity and harmony 
of a moving system fulfilling its ends age after age. The 
uncertainty and confusion of random occurrence are ex- 
cluded. All events take place under orderly causation. 
Modern science has emphasized this uniformity of nature 
as the grand fundamental truth, on the basis of which all 
investigation must be carried on, and all its conclusions 
must rest. It is universally conceded that this orderly 
sequence in the ceaseless process from cause to effect, in 
fixed regularity, is the very beauty and strength of nature, 
the great principle which turns chaos into the cosmos. 
This uniformity of nature is the product of the uniformity 
of causation; and viewed in the light of theistic thought, 
this uniformity of causation is due to the creative and 
ordaining will of God. The reign of law, in this sense, is 
now recognized as covering the whole field of physical 
nature, from the movement of starry spheres to the fall of 
a sparrow or the coloring of a rose’s petal. 

This principle of law extends into the mental and moral 
worlds — the laws here being appropriate to the rationality 
and freedom which belong to these realms. The laws 
which express the modes of cause and effect in the mate- 
rial world, and those which belong to the higher range of 
intellectual and moral order, respectively, are peculiar to 
their own sphere and rank, yet they are adjusted to each 
other, and by their adjusted action, the universe becomes 
unified and harmonized under established general laws. 

It is one of the great truths, now settled beyond all 
question, that this uniformity and permanence of law is 
the condition and basis, not only of all the order, strength, 
beauty, and glory of physical nature, but of all the possi- 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 249 


ble excellence, success, and blessedness of human life. 
Because nature is fixed, human freedom can choose, and 
act with success. Laws, running their clear lines onward 
through every sphere, and showing results in advance, are 
the Creator’s call and demand for obedience and conform- 
ity. They light up the future to our view and choices. 
Through this fixedness of linked consequence, seemingly 
so stern and merciless, we can look onward down the 
years and ages, and work out the highest possibilities in 
our nature and powers. It is only thus that nature is at 
all a subject of knowledge or science, or that its forces and 
movement are capable of being used by man. Only thus, 
indeed, could animal life, our own, or that of the lower 
orders, maintain itself at all. Only thus can we choose or 
carry out any choice. Only thus can there be respon- 
sibility or moral character, or any ends open to our attain 
ment. Only thus can there be knowledge, business, art, 
industry, literature, civilization, and culture. Without 
this system of general and unbending law, so far as we 
can see, nature must return to chaos and the world cease 
to be a theater for the lofty things which belong to free 
intelligent personality. Though men have often arraigned 
the constitution of the world because of some severe con- 
sequences of such unbending action of physical and moral 
laws, this very feature is the condition of their being even 
able to understand enough of nature to be able to formu- 
‘ate their complaints. There can be no question that it 
bears abundant evidence of being essentially a scheme of 
wisdom and goodness. 

Under such a system of general and uniform laws, open- 
ing up the possibility of all that is judged highest anc 
best in ene it may not be possible to prevent or exclude 


250 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


all liability to suffering. The liability becomes a reality 
when the laws of nature and well-being are not observed 
but violated. The suggestion, made occasionally in past 
times, of immediate interpositions to prevent the conse- 
quences fixed in nature’s laws of cause and effect, can 
plead no advantage for its plan. For, analyzed to the 
last, it involves the abandonment of the whole law of 
order. In the high range of human freedom, it would 
sink all the qualities of consideration, forecast, prudence, 
and care, and remove the basis and fact of responsibility 
and virtue, annulling all the discipline of intelligent power 
and moral character. It is by no means certain that the 
system of the world would be made better by insuring the 
safety and enjoyment of all creatures in recklessness, 
indifference, or inaction. If natural and moral laws were 
made few and uncertain; if their action were suspended 
whenever their ongoing would afflict anyone on their 
track; if fire would cease to burn whenever the helpless 
were exposed to it; if water would lose its essential quali- 
ties and refrain from drowning the crew of the wrecked 
vessel; i’ gravitation were to cease whenever anyone 
would be broken or crushed by its movement; if, in short, 
nature’s forces should take an added law to stop whenever 
their uniformities would maim or wound anyone, it might 
indeed seem to be a very merciful or loving modification; 
but in view of some of the consequences which, we can see, 
would at once connect themselves with the new order, and 
others which may be wholly beyond our vision, it becomes 
exceedingly doubtful whether we can convict the principle 
of uniformity and inflexible order of want of wisdom or 
goodness. 

(8) The final settlement of the question between opti- 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY. 251 


mism and pessimism, whether the world is the best world 
possible, or the worst, is probably impossible from a 
simple observation and comparison of the facts of nature 
and experience. These facts both reflect light and cast 
shadows, and their testimony as it comes to us needs an 
interpreter who stands on a higher point of view, and in a 
broader light than is possible to us here. The question 
must be answered rather from our necessary conception cf 
the perfect nature of the Infinite Being. In the final 
response, the necessary character of God must explain the 
creation, and assure that, though some shadows lie upon 
it, it all together stands for a thought of wisdom and an 
aim of love. And, thus, the question calls for more light 
than reason and nature alone can give — the illumination 
of the Christian revelation. All that Natural Theology 
can settle at this extreme point — and it is enough that it 
can do this — is (a), that no suffering is found inflicted for 
its own sake; (4), that all the direct ends of nature are 
clearly beneficial and good; (c), that most of the perplex- 
ing features are really but defects implied in all creation 
as finite and limited, which we interpret into terms of 
suffering; and (@), both the general purpose of happiness 
unmistakably written on nature, and the very conception 
we necessarily have of God as the Perfect Being, the 
Perfect Reason and Wisdom, warrant the conclusion that 
goodness really presides over the aggregate scheme, and 
that, could we understand it fully, the perplexing features 
would come under love’s illumination, and cease to per- 
plex. 


CHAPTER II. 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 


i iio inquiry here includes two distinct questions. The 
first is whether God is to be conceived of as tran- 
scendent to the universe or as immanent in it, or as in 
both these relations. The second is: What is the supreme 
or ultimate end in creation? 


I. WHETHER TRANSCENDENT OR IMMANENT. 


It needs to be observed at the outstart that the exist- 
ence of God, as shown by the evidences in the first part of 
this work, is a truth independent of the question here 
raised. That truth rests upon its own basis. Yet the 
proofs which have established it have the further force of 
opening the way to a right conclusion as to this additional 
question. The facts which have shown the existence of 
God shed light on His relation to the creation which ap- 
pears as His work. 

1. The entire evidence shows that God and the uni- 
verse cannot be identified. For, on any philosophy capa- 
ble of being applied to the theistic evidences, the Cause 
must be distinguished from the effect. To imagine the uni- 
verse to be at once the cause and the effect of itself, would 
set at nought the logical demand of all the great facts in 
the case. These facts, especially in the cosmological and 
teleological evidences, forbid the idea that nature itselt 
may be the absolute, eternal, self-existent being. It bears 


incontestible marks of dependence and origination. The 
252 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 253 


pantheistic conception which makes God and the world 
one — pantheistic monism — is clearly excluded by the nec- 
essary distinction which the principle of causation com- 
pels us to make between the cause and the effect. The 
Supreme Cause, that which is the Cause of all secondary 
or instrumental and dependent causes in nature, must be 
other than nature itself and distinct from it. 

2. The relation between cause and effect, therefore, on 
which the proofs of the divine existence rest, requires us 
to conceive of God as transcendent in respect to the uni- 
verse. The Cause is before and above the effect. This 
relation is part of the essential conception of the principle 
of causation. This transcendent relation of God as the 
Creator of the universe is universally admitted, except by 
the extreme materialism which denies His existence, or by 
the pantheism which identifies that existence with the uni- 
verse, holding the physical universe as but the evolution 
of the divine substance. This pantheistic conception, 
however, when viewed in its last analysis, turns into 
atheism. For it finds no God other than the universe 
itself, the sum of nature. 

In affirming this necessary transcendence of the Deity 
as thus demanded under the conception of Him as the 
First Cause of all, we must, nevertheless, avoid what has 
been called “absolute transcendence.” Natural Theology 
has to guard against a false extreme. An “absoluti 
transcendence ” would regard Him as so separate from the 
universe as not to be in it or act in it, but as, after having 
created its substances and established its forces and laws, 
simply observing its ongoing, as an artificer might observe 
the movement of the mechanism which he has constructed. 
Such a notion of transcendence, found in some of the writers 


254 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


of ancient Greece and Rome, has often since reappeared, 
God was elevated to an empyrean far beyond the move- 
ment and noise of the world, and represented as wholly 
unconcerned about the vicissitudes and issues of life. 
This extreme view has too frequently affected theological 
thought and representation. The supermundane relation 
has been exaggerated into an almost impassable gulf. 
Neither prayer nor its answer can cross it. The creature 
is thrust outside of fellowship with the Creator. The sys- 
tem of nature is a mechanism constructed and wound up, 
to run of itself its fixed course. No such absolute tran- 
scendence is required, however, by the evidences here con- 
cerned. No such extreme separation should be included 
in our notion of the relation of the Deity to the world. 
Yet God must be before and above the universe of created 
existence. A real and essential transcendence is the first 
and fundamental requirement of all the evidences which 
prove Him to be the absolute Creator. 

3. The same causal relation which thus necessitates 
our conception of the divine transcendence requires us to 
recognize also the divine immanence in the world. For 
the causal action did not remain external, acting only from 
outside of nature, but has become an omnipresence and 
power within it. God appears as essentially a transitive 
Cause, passing over and forever filling as well as abiding 
in the universe. All causes are the established onflow of 
the divine will and energy. They could not be, or con- 
tinue, without Him. The universe is in God, and God in it 
forever, by necessity of His infinity and omnipresence. 
This truth resolves and harmonizes the difficulties sug- 
gested by the natural facts of immanent causation and 
finality. It neither denies nor obliterates the reality of 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 255 


second or physical causes and laws in nature, but recog- 
nizes their dependent relation to the purpose and estab- 
lishing will of the absolute Creator. The fact of secondary 
causation, of efficient energy, under natural or fixed law, 
moving and developing as material and physical forces, is 
unquestionable, and not at all to be dropped from view. It 
is indeed the fundamental reality underlying the entire 
proof of the divine existence. The search in the whole 
inquiry of theism is after the cause of these natural pow- 
ers and their established action. We, therefore, must not 
fall into the mistake of some theistic writers, who have 
attributed each separate and individual event in nature to 
a direct act of the divine will or energy. This error an- 
nihilates the reality of secondary causation. It is not 
only in plain contradiction of all that we know of the con- 
stitution of nature, whether as ascertained in common 
knowledge or through science, but it vacates the very pos- 
tulate on which the theistic argumentation is based. Nat- 
ural forces are real, and the laws of their action are made 
immanent in the nature of the elements or organism in 
which they show themselves. But they are the real prod- 
ucts and ordinations of the will of the Deity who gave 
them their reality and appointed their modes or laws. 
They remain as the permanent ordinary or natural powers, 
of divine creation and establishment. The laws of nature 
are modes of the divine power and will in nature; 
yet they have been fixed by the creative act within the 
very forces which exhibit them. They are the sequences 
according to which God ordinarily acts, yet their results 
come, not as direct, but as mediate products of the divine 
power. 

The logical demand of the facts of the cosmic system 


256 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


point, therefore, to the conclusion that God, who was before 
the universe, not oniy created the natural forces, with their 
modes which we call laws, as real subordinate agents for 
their intended results, but that in His infinity He filled, and 
forever fills, the universe with His presence and power. 
The First Cause becomes transitive, and His presence is 
never separated from His power. 

As it has been necessary to guard against an absolute 
transcendence, so it is needful to guard against an “abso- 
lute immanence.” Rational theism must reject this error 
as well as the other. While an absolute transcendence 
would represent God as a remote Deity, keeping wholly 
outside of His works and giving it no presence or love or 
living relation to Himself, an absolute immanence would 
run into a pantheistic identification of God with nature 
itself, making the universe but an evolution of the sub- 
stance of God. This error fails to maintain the distinction 
between God and nature, and in attempting to make all 
divine leaves nothing divine —loses God in an absolutely 
immanent cosmical causality. This absolute immanence 
of causality and finality, whether of the materialistic or the 
pantheistic sort, is one of the subtlest repudiations of true 
theism, and but another name for atheism. This transi- 
tive immanence, however, which starts with the recogni- 
tion of the essential and necessary transcendence, main- 
tains the proper and real dualism of God and nature, the 
Creator and the creation, and yet confesses His presence 
and power everywhere. It is in harmony with the concep- 
tion of nature as a true effect of an originating Cause, and 
at the same time recognizes the unceasing and omnipresent 
working of God within and through it. As a conclusion of 
Natural Theology, it is also in harmony with the view of 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 257° 


poets and sages of our Christian Scriptures, who looked on 
everything as God’s doing. It is in consonance with the 
teaching: “In Him we live and move and have our being.” 
He is above nature and below it, without it and within it, 
yet never a part of it. He is not nature, but nature is. 
from Him and subsists by Him.’ 
‘* Super cuncta, subter cuncta, 

Extra cuncta, intra cuncta; 

Intra cuncta, nec inclusus, 

Extra cuncta, nec exclusus ; 

Super cuncta, nec elatus, 

Subter cuncta, nec substratus; 

Super totus, presidendo, 

Subter totus, sustinendo.” ? 

4, It is proper yet to emphasize what has been implied 
all along, that the relation of God is that of absolute Cre- 
ator, and not an artificer working with eternally existent 
materials. The dualism of God and nature is not a dual- 
ism of two eternally existing substances, God and matter; 
but the relation in which Deity stands as the absolute Cre- 
ator of the elements as well as the form of the world. 
The rational concept of God is that of the unconditioned 
ground of all being. This excludes the self-existence of 
matter — which would condition the divine activity. More- 
over, if matter were eternal, its laws would not be of God, 
but inherent and beyond God. The whole basis of the 
universe would thus be outside of God. He would be re- 
duced to simply a cunning and skilful architect. The 
notion of the eternity of matter has had a large place in 
the thought of past times, and remains to some extent in 
the present. Its old motto: “ex nihilo nihil fit,” is still 


1 Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 25. 
2 Hilbertus Turonensis, Latin Hymns (Harper & Brothers). p. 103. 
17 : 


258 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


quoted in its old sense. But when used in any other 
meaning than as a statement of the universality of the 
law of causation and of the necessity of postulating a First 
Cause of all things, it leads to an idea forbidden by the 
whole body of the theistic evidences. These evidences 
call for one absolute Being as the sole self-existence. And 
all that science has been able to show of material atoms 
and their combinations reveals a purpose, plan, or adap- 
tation in their essential structure, as of manufactured ar- 
ticles, or subordinate and prepared agents. The entire 
teleological evidence points clearly to Mind as the cause 
of the forces, laws, and products of matter. The order- 
liness of these forces and laws, their beautiful adaptation 
to the ends of intelligence and purpose, are inconsistent 
with the netion of their independent existence. Kant, in 
one of his earlier essays, well says: “There is a God, be- 
cause nature, even in chaos, could not proceed otherwise 
than with regularity and order. . . . Left to its own gen- 
eral qualities, nature is rich in fruits which are always fair 
and perfect. Not merely are they harmonious and excel- 
lent themselves, but they are adapted to every order of 
being, to the use of man and to the glory of God. It is 
thus evident that the essential properties of matter must 
spring from one mind, the source and ground of all beings; 
a mind, in which they belong to a solidarity of plan.”* 
This absoluteness of God’s creative relation compels us 
to think of time and space as of God. Time and space 
are not to be thought of as entities or relations independ- 
ent of Him and of His creative action, as they have often 
been represented. Nor are they mere subjective, illusive 


1 Quoted from Wallace's Kant, Blackwood’s Philosophical Classics, pp. 109, 
110. 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 259 


notions of our own minds, mere forms of thought, after 
the misleading doctrine of relativity in the Kantian phi- 
losophy. They are true forthe actual universe. Yet they 
belong to the universe only as created by God. Space, in 
itself, is only the possibility of extended material existen- 
ces. That possibility is only in the creative power of God. 
Apart from Him, space is absolute vacuity, utter nothing- 
ness. Time is the possibility of finite events or existences, 
with some continuance. Apart from God, time is nothing 
—only the possibility of something. These possibilities 
were originally only in God. Time and space, as con- 
ceived before the creation, can be conceived of only as 
the not-being of anything but God. When He creates 
beings other than Himself, time and space relations begin 
for the universe. 


II. THE SUPREME OR ULTIMATE END IN CREATION. 


The law of ends, so clear and decisive in the constitu- 
tion and relations of the various parts of nature, compels 
belief in an ultimate all-inclusive end. The teleological 
principle, once admitted, must be extended to the universe 
in its totality. There must be some supreme purpose to 
which all subordinate purposes converge and in which the 
relations of all are consummated. If God created the 
very substances with properties fitted for their intended 
service in world-building, and has given to each organism a 
complex of distinct adaptations to both internal uses and 
external conditions, if all nature is made a balanced order, 
a very cosmos, moving on in a steady harmony and rational 
progression, we are logically forced to conclude that He 
created the entire system of things for some defined and 
specific end. Nothing seems to exist for itself alone. The 


260 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


parts everywhere have relation to the whole. Everything 
looks to something beyond itself, and is framed into a 
grand system embracing the entire universe. The crea- 
tion as such must stand for and express a purpose. Only 
thus does the law of ends find its full comprehension, 
Only thus is the origin of the universe in a designing In- 
telligence really and fully justified. This ultimate purpose 
expresses one aspect of God’s relation to the world. 

But what is that purpose? For what end did God give 
existence to the universe? Why did He create it? This 
question, it must be borne in mind, is different from the 
question whether He had any end. The reality of final 
cause in nature is always to be distinguished from our 
ability to discover the actual purposes. The existence of 
ends is one thing; our discovery of them is quite another. 
The interpretations which men have put on nature’s 
organizations and relations have often been absurdly mis- 
taken. Teleology has often been discredited by the gro- 
tesque blunders and frivolous explanations of its friends. 
It is one of the offices of true progressive science to enable 
us to read the thought of God more correctly in nature’s 
specific structures and relations. While in many things- 
as in the eye or ear, the end is unquestionable, and it 
would be a spurious modesty of knowledge to affect not 
to know it, in others the ends are so obscure or compli- 
cated, or reach out into so wide a circle of relations, as to 
make the most skilful interpreter rightly hesitate to claim 
a full or certain knowledge of them. In so large a problem 
as that which seeks the supreme purpose of the universe 
itself, the ultimate aim to which it has been adjusted, our 
certainty that it has an end may not be equalled by our 
certainty of knowing it. The difficulties to our knowledge 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 261 


arise not alone from the vastness of the universe, stretch- 
ing almost to infinity of space and time, but from the 
necessary limitations under which our finite minds must 
ever view the infinite thoughts and purposes of the Eternal 
Mind. Yet even here, guided by the truth that our reason 
is in the pattern of the Infinite Reason, our personality is 
in the mould of the Infinite Personality, we may find the 
light of truth shining with such clearness as to assure our 
confidence. We may probably know the generic end of 
the divine purpose in creation. 

1. Several questionable views have been widely as- 
serted. One is, that God created the universe for Him- 
self or His own glory. The reasons alleged for this view 
are: (1) That before creation, God being the only and 
absolute Existence, the whole reason of creation, 7.é., both 
motive and aim, must have been in Himself, There was 
nothing else with respect to which He could act. (2) That, 
as He could act only for the worthiest object, one of infinite 
worth, He could find it only in Himself. His own glory 
could be the only worthy object. But the following con- 
siderations are enough to make us hesitate to accept this 
explanation: (1) That though the universe was not 
actually existent, it was existent in the divine thought 
and plan, and could thus certainly stand for an end in the 
divine action. (2) That it seems to imply that God was 
not absolutely self-sufficient, but was lacking something 
which He created in order to complete Himself or His 
glory. If it be maintained, as the theory appears to assert, 
that God can act only for an infinite object, and can have 
no end outside of Himself, creation becomes inexplicable; 
for, as already having Himself, why should he seek Him- 
self in a roundabout way? If the terminus of the divine 


262 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


aim was absolutely Himself, how would he ever have come 
out of Himself in creative work? (3) It implies—and 
this is the decisive trouble in this theory —that the divine 
activity is necessarily, in its final aims, supreme self- 
seeking. Creation is made a selfish proceeding. It is 
impossible to save the theory from this implication. Even 
when it is shaped with a view to avoid it, the taint of the 
implication inheres in it. For if the ultimate end, that 
which subordinates everything else to itself, is His own 
glory, then all else falls into the relation of mere means, 
and love becomes subordinate to self-aggrandizement. The 
infinite perfections of God, especially as unified in love, 
seem clearly to forbid this theory. 

Another theory represents that God created for the 
sake of the happiness of the creation. It holds that 
though infinitely happy in Himself, He, out of pure good- 
ness, desired to give existence and happiness to other and 
finite beings. But this view is defective for two reasons. 
(1) It goes on the assumption that simple happiness is the 
creature’s supreme good. (2) It fails to take account of 
the ethical character of God, which must necessarily have 
place and manifestation in His creative will and plan. 
God may delight in creating excellence as well as happi- 
ness. In His sight there may be something higher than 
enjoyment. The great ethical law stamped on man’s 
reason, and inwrought into the whole moral constitution 
of the world, reflects a divine intention beyond the simple 
communication of pleasure. Viewed in the light of the 
goal to which man is bound by all the emphasis of his 
moral nature, the divine aim must be considered as having 
included an ethical object. (3) Under a theory of creation 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 263 


simply for happiness, the occurrence of suffering would be- 
inexplicable, as defeating the supreme end. 

2. We will best reach the correct conclusion on this 
subject by observing the necessary distinction between 
the subjective and the objective reasons for the divine 
action. By the subjective reason is to be understood the 
divine ¢mpulse or motive arising from God’s own nature. 
By the objective, the end at which the divine motive, as 
an intelligent purpose, aims. His own nature is the 
supreme reason of His choices and the source of His 
action. Because He is what He is He delights to do 
what He does. In acting, the relations of subject and 
object must be true for God Himself, unless God be really 
lost in a pantheistic unconsciousness which knows neither 
self nor ends. The subjective impulse and the objective 
end never exclude, but always imply and call for each 
other. A mother’s heart is the subjective reason for her 
self-sacrifice, but the child’s welfare is the end it seeks. 
Such a distinction we are not only authorized, but required 
to make in conceiving of the divine action. It will help. 
us to the true view on this question. This view must 
include two points : 

First, the supreme reason of God’s creating the uni- 
verse is the subjective one, and is found in His own good- 
ness, delighting in the exercise of the divine power and 
wisdom in the production of blessed existence. Creation 
is a form of Love’s free self-manifestation and outworking. 
Since God is absolutely self-sufficient, goodness is the only 
thing that could determine Him to the production of 
beings other than Himself. Personality, whether finite or 
infinite, is self-moving. The absolute Personality must 
move absolutely from Himself. In His own being was the. 


264 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


only moving spring to the forthputting of creative energy. 
He created because of His fulness, self-moved in favor 
toward the creation He contemplated. Love is the power 
that takes out of self and acts non-egoistically and altru- 
istically. Creation is altruistic activity. Guided by wis- 
dom and holiness, love is the disposing or moving principle 
to God’s power. The universe is an expression of the 
principle of communicative goodness. While it reflects 
God’s wisdom and omnipotence, it preéminently represents 
His love. 

Secondly, the objective end sought by God was the 
blessedness of the creation. This blessedness must be 
understood as uniting both excellence and happiness. It 
includes ethical as well as sensitive good. What God 
delights in, and therefore sought to give existence to, is 
not creature enjoyment alone, but real excellence of being. 
Since His action was altruistic, we are entitled to say that 
in creating the universe He sought #7, and not Himself. 
It is the nature of love to communicate itself, to act for 
the production of excellence and happiness, to create 
objects on which it may pour out its favor. It would be 
in conflict with this law of love to make God’s creative 
action but a movement bending back on Himself, a curve 
of outgoing and returning, with the supreme end of dis- 
playing His own glory. It does display His glory, and all 
the more radiantly because not an act of self-secking, but 
of love. In a high sense, too, the creation is “for Him- 
self,” i.e., it is for the action of His love and goodness. 
“For Thy pleasure they are and were created.” When we 
thus look upon the excellence and felicity of the creation 
as the objective terminus of the creative action, we see 
the object sought in the object created, and yet leave 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 265 


the entire and supreme reason (ratio) of creation in 
God Himself. This answer to the whole question seems 
best to accord with the demands of reason, and at the 
same time leaves room for the great fact which Christianity 
brings to our view, the fact of divine self-sacrifice, by 
which, in redemption, God still seeks the welfare and hap- 
piness of His creatures. If love may be held as the 
supreme reason of redemption, it may certainly be of 
creation. The explanation throws the reasons and ends 
of creation and redemption into harmony. 

3. Asa subordinate topic under this general question, 
we naturally inquire into the specific end for our own 
world. We may justly say, indeed, that God sought all 
the distinct objects represented and accomplished in the 
existence, experiences, and true uses of all the various 
parts of the world’s constitution and inhabitants. Myriads 
of different aims are everywhere and for ever passing into 
fulfilment and illustrating the richness of nature’s tele- 
ology. But since this constitution exhibits a vast range 
of graded and ascending correlations, or.a coirdinated 
and advancing scheme, we necessarily ask for its ultimate 
and all-comprehending purpose, as one of the worlds of 
the great universe. We seek a teleology for the earth 
in its material and organic development and human his- 
tory. 

Clearly, if we interpret the significance of the order of 
subordinations and progression of existence and life on 
our planet, the purpose of the earth must be held as cul- 
minating in the service and destiny of man. We are 
aware of the scorn with which some writers have sought 
to cover this claim for our race, as but the pleasant self- 
flattery of human vanity. But, undeniably, science puts 


266 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


man, with his mental and moral endowments and possi- 
bilities, at the summit of nature on our globe. The inor- 
ganic parts of the earth look to the organic, the vegetable 
to the animal, the animal organization is crowned in the 
human. The human rises into the realm of free spiritual 
being. The movement of the grand series of advances 
and ascents, traced up along the slow progress of the 
geologic periods, shows no sign of anything higher, 


‘‘The diapason closing full in man.” 


To him are given attributes which place him in rulership 
over the whole realm of nature. Though his physical 
organization is embraced in it, his spiritual and rational 
endowments stand, in a sense, above it. In the vast rock- 
ages nature was prophetic of his coming, providing for his 
life and industries; now it submits its forces, and laws, 
and wealth of productions to his knowledge, will, and 
uses. This does not mean that each specific thing on 
earth exists solely for him. There are innumerable distinct 
and real provisions for other and subordinate ends. The 
order of nature is so arranged as to make each particular 
being reciprocally an end and a means with respect to 
others. But the number and proportion that termi- 
nate on human life give it this lofty preéminence. This 
is the Grown and explanation of nature. ‘“ Man is, so far 
as this earth is concerned, the highest end to which nature 
has attained, and toward which it has always been striv- 
ing. He seems to be endowed with all the forces of 
nature, as well as with the powers of spirit. They are 
all taken up and represented in him. . . . All this plainly 
indicates that man is at the head of all creatures here on 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 267 


the earth, and to him all nature is and always has been 
tributary.” * 

It is not theology alone that asserts this view. It is 
preéminently the doctrine of science. Science is every- 
where revealing the goal of nature’s forces in the utilities 
of human life and welfare. Even evolution is offering its 
concurring word for it. The Darwinian theory shows us 
distinctly, for the first time, how the creation and perfect- 
ing of man is the goal toward which nature’s work has 
been all the while tending. It develops tenfold the sig- 
nificance of human life, places it upon even a loftier 
eminence than poets or prophets have imagined, and 
makes it seem more than ever the chief object of that 
creative activity which is manifested in the physical uni- 
verse. . . . Not the production of any higher creature, 
but the perfecting of humanity, is to be the glorious con- 
summation of nature’s long and tedious work.”? We 
need not accept this evolutionary hypothesis, but in thus 
assigning man’s place, it does homage to the invincible 
teleological force of the vast system of nature’s indica- 
tions, The highest point to which the converging lines of 
our world’s arrangements and adaptations seem intended 
to look is the welfare of the human race. 

4, The lofty position thus given man is justly viewed 
as implying something of high importance or worth in his 
nature. There must be in his happiness and possibilities 
a value that justifies, even to the divine reason, this mar- 
shalling of so many agencies and operations to his use, and 
consummating a world’s history in his service. We must, 
therefore, interpret his rational and spiritual nature as 


1 Prof. S. Harris’ Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 385. 
2 The Destiny of Man, by John Fiske, pp. 25, 31. 


268 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


being no ordinary or temporary endowment, but one 
which exalts him to a divine fellowship and a destined 
immortality. This interpretation is sustained by many 
and varied lines of confirmatory evidence. In all ages 
and nations the race has developed and cherished belief in 
a continued existence after death. Literature, from the 
time of Plato down to the present, has busied itself with 
this hope and its reasons. Man has everywhere inter- 
preted his destiny as higher than that of the grass that 
withers and the beasts that perish. In his aspirations after 
ideals never reached in this life, in a sense of constitu- 
tional possibilities and adaptations in his being not fulfilled 
here, he has read his appointment to a larger and higher 
field of thought and action in some future sphere. These 
common “intimations of immortality” have not been dis- 
credited, but have been vindicated and assured by the 
best and latest science and philosophy. The human soul, 
with the great attributes of reason, freedom, and ethical 
responsibility, is irresolvable in any combination, inter- 
action, or motion of matter. No chemistry of the material 
elements or processes of molecular action can explain the 
origination of thought and personality. “By no possi- 
bility can thought and feeling be in any sense the products 
of matter.”? Self-determination and memory refuse all 
physical solution. “It is absolutely and forever incon- 
ceivable that a number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and 
oxygen atoms should be otherwise than indifferent to their 
positions and motions, past, present, or future. It is 
utterly inconceivable how consciousness should result from 
their joint action.”* Man, therefore, as a personal being, 


1 Prof. John Fiske: The Destiny of Man, p. 109. 
2 Du Bois Raymond, quoted from Dr. Harris’ Philosophical Basis of Theism. 


RELATION OF GOD TO THE UNIVERSE. 269 


is spirit and hyper-material. His high attributes lift him 
into communion with his Creator, and place him above the 
destiny of merely physical organization. The endowments 
and provisions of his soul are prophetic, and pledge much 
that is unrealized in the present life. Kant’s great theis- 
tic argument, it will be remembered, finds sufficient 
evidence, not only of the existence of a righteous God, 
but of a future state, in the intrinsic constitution of the 
soul, which shows that it has been made for a happiness 
and a moral excellence unattainable in this world. The 
proof of both God and immortality is found in the laws of 
man’s being. The grand fact of personality, in all that 
the fact involves as to man’s essence and powers, makes 
him in a high sense a child of the infinite Father of spirits, 
and justifies not only the old poet’s exultant claim: 


“*We are also His offspring,” ! 


but the common human faith which disdains “the lot of 
the grass that withers and the beasts that perish,” and 
counts on living forever. And thus Natural Theology, 
by the processes through which it has reached the evi- 
dences of the existence of an infinite Author of the 
universe, obtains at the same time a new and higher 
conception of the relationship and destiny of the human 
race. In finding God it also finds man. 


In here closing this outline view of the great subject 
presented, it is proper to add the confession of Natural 
Theology, that it cannot open up all the truth needed by 
man’s religious nature or required by the moral and spirit- 


1 Aratus, quoted Acts XVI/, 28. 


270 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 


ual interests of the race. It does, indeed, assure and vin- 
dicate the great fundamental truth of the existence of God, 
a:id throw explaining light on numberless facts of nature 
and life and problems of thought and duty. The truths 
which it vindicates are of incalculable moment. But 
beyond all that we can learn concerning God and His 
relation to the world from reason and nature, there is 
room and necessity for the light and teaching of a super- 
natural revelation. 

1. Natural Theology can give only a partial and incom- 
plete view of God’s character. 

2. It leaves us in the dark as to man’s specific end in 
life and how he may accomplish it. 

3. Its intimations, though they suggest hope for the 
future, yet fail to bring immortality to full light. 

4. It does not explain the existence of sin and the 
depravity of our race. 

5. It furnishes no remedy for sin—no way of forgive- 
ness, or salvation from it. 

6. The history of mankind shows unquestionably that 
when left to the mere light of nature and reason men hold 
low and inadequate conceptions of God, and are wofully 
wanting in the knowledge necessary to a right, pure, and 
happy life. Even the most cultured nations, without 
God’s word, have failed to attain a clear or steady con- 
ception of his character and will. 

7. A revelation from God gives a fresh and most im- 
pressive proof of His existence. As we have His revela- 
tion of Himself in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testaments, His character and will are fully made 
known. The great questions of truth and duty are 


answered. In God’s light we see light. 


INDEX. 





A 


Absolute, the, a necessity of 
thought, 51, 52; required by 
the finite conditioned universe, 
66; God the absolute Being, 
228; God an absolute Creator, 
257. 

Agnosticism, 53, 5 

Analogy, inv bt in the teleolog- 
ical argument, 86. 

Animals ‘feeding on one another, 
242, 

Animal intelligence, 119. 

Ankle, 112. 

Anselm, ontological argument of, 
46, 48, 


Aristotle, 10, 76, 96. 

Arnold, Matthew, 215. 

Astronomical order, 140, 174. 

Atheism and ethies, 38. 

Atmosphere, the, 132, 142. 

Atomic weight, 149. 

Atoms, postulated, 69; peculiar- 
ities stated by J. Clerk Max- 
well, 151. 

Attributes of God, 224. 


B 


Bees, 121-124. 
Bell, Sir Charles, 6. 
en influence of theistic faith, 


Birds, 113, 126, 129. 
Book of the Dead, 5. 
Bony framework, 102. 
Bowen, Prof. Francis, a 
Bowne, Prof. Borden P., 
Brahmanism, 238. 

Brain and Mind, 72, 200. 
Bridgewater Treatises, 6. 
Buddhism, 27. 


Burnett Prize Essays, 6. 
—e ontological argunient by, 


Cc 
Carpenter, William B., 116, 122. 
24 


124. 

Cause defined, 60. 

Causes, distinguished, 7 

Chadbourne, Prof., 113, cen 130. 

Chalmers, 6, 153. 

Chance, defined and explained. 
82; insufficient to account for 
finality, 186. 

Chemistry, 141; atomie weights 
conform to mathematical order, 
172. 

Cicero, 5, 74. 

Circulatory organs, 108. 

Clarke, Samuel, 6, 48 

Clausius, 71. 

Cocker, Dr. B. F., 6, 10. 

Comte, 16, 34 

Conditions of Existence, 192. 

Conscience, 206. 

Consciousness of God, 54. 

Conservation of energy, 69. 

Cooke, J. P., 6, 110, 134, 136, 
142, 150. 

Cosmological evidence, 25, 59, 


Cousin, ontological proof by, 47. 

Crystallization, conforms to geo- 
metric order, 173. 

Cndworth, 9, 48. 

Cumulative nature of the evi- 
dences, 21, 221. 


D 


Darwin, 117. 
Darwinism, 195, 198, 267. 
Day, Dr. H. N., 10, 32, 42. 


271 


272 


Death of animals, 242. 

De Brosses, 17. 

Deism, 6. 

Descartes, 9. 

Design, subjective and objective, 
77 


i. 
Digestive system, 106. 
Diman, Dr. J. Lewis, 6. 
Dissipation of energy, 70. 
Dorn2r, ontological argument of, 


dl. 
Du Bois Raymond, 41, 64, 268. 


E 


Har, 101. 

Earth, its development, 131; and 
solar system, 140. 

Erskine, Thomas, 212. 

Eternal series, 94. 

Eternity of God, 225. 

Evolution, as including more or 
less, 194; its bearing on the ar- 
gument from final cause, 196; 
and conscience, 207, 208. 

Eye, 97, 180. 


F 


Faith as an immediate apprehen- 
sion of God, 57. 

Feeling as a direct apprehension 
of God, 56 

Fetishism, 17. 

Finality, how the term is used, 95. 

Final cause, defined, 76; relation 
to efficient cause, 79; its alter- 
native, 82; viewed as resting 
on experience and induction, 
83; a large phenomenon, 88; 
found in nature, 96; demands 
intelligence, 176. 

Fiske, Prof. John,198, 202. 

Flint, 6, 13; on the ontological 
evidence, 53. 

Freedom of will, 203. 


G 


Galen, 114. 

Goodness of God, 281; required 
by His holiness, 282; by His 
wisdom, 283; shown by crea- 


INDEX. 


tion, 233; difficulties consid- 
ered, 236. 
Gray, Prof. Asa, 198. 


H 


Haeckel, 34, 64, 179. 
Hartmann, Edward von, 181, 161. 
Harris, Prof. S., 6, 68. 
Hebrews, 4. 

Hegel, 178. 

Henry, Prof., 42. 

Herschel, Sir John, 150, 154, 
Hibernation, 129. 

History of theistic proof, 4. 
Holiness, 231. 

Hume, 95, 177. 

Hunter, John, 122, 125. 
Huxley, 165, 198. 


I 


Idea of God; its content, 9-11; 
pues of, 11-16; universal, 
the 


Immanence of God in nature, 254. 

Immanence of finality, 183. 

Immortality of man, 267. 

Inductive science and intelligent 
design, 204. 

Infinity an attribute of God, 228. 

Influence of theistic faith, 37. 

Intentionality, as correlative to 
finality, 95; required by final- 
ity, 176. 

Instinct, religious, 30; in animals, 

116; as to foods, 120, 123: 
correspondent, 121; for build- 
ing, 124; for continuance oz 
species, 128; immanent, 183. 

Intuitional truths, accepted in 
theistic argument, 3. 

Intuition of God, 55. 


J 


Janet, Paul, 6, 73, 75, 84, 95. 
Jevons, Prof., 190. 


K 


Kant, relied on the moral evi- 
dence, 23; his subjectivism, 52; 


INDEX. 


his explanation of the law of 
causation, 62; his moral argu- 
ment, 216. 

Kepler, 204. 

Kidd, John, 6. 

Knowledge, ontological, 67. 


L 


Lew Js causation, 59; defined, 61. 

Law of chemical equivalents, 149. 

Legge, Prof. Jas., 19. 

Life, described, 155; shows final- 
ity, 157 ane seed, 160. 

Love of God, 231. 

Lungs, 109. 


M 


Mansel, Dean, 14. 

Man’s relation to nature, 90, 265. 

Materialism, 34, 72, 73, 200. 

Max Miiller, 17, 19, 28. 

Maxwell, J. Clerk, 151. 

McCosh, Dr. James, 6. 

Methods of proof, 24, 82. 

Migration, periodic, 129. 

Mil!, J. S., 95, 165, 177, 180. 

Milne-Edwards. 120. 

Mind, a part of begun existence, 
72: acts as a final cause, 163; 
adaptations between its powers, 
166; to bodily organism 168; 
its laws of pure thought tally 
with the realities of the uni- 
verse, 169; the only known 
cause of finality, 179; recog- 
nizes its own products, 88, 181; 
inexplicable by materialism, 
a only originating power, 
22) 


Mivart, St. George, 129, 198. 

Monotheism, 16. 

Moral evidence, 25, 206, 221. 

Moral government, 213. 

Morality, relation of Natural 
Theology to, 7. 

Muscles, 104. 


N 


Names for God, 18. 
Nature, a source of theistic evi- 


273 


dence, 2, 21; exhibits final 
cause, 96; under general laws, 
247; tributary to man, 265. 

Neuwentyt, 6. 

Newton, 6, 10. 

Nihilism, 39. 

Nutrition, 112. 


oO 


Omnipotence, 230. 

Omnipresence, 230. 

Omniscience, 229. 

Nile mace evidence, 24, 25, 44, 
218. 

Optimism and pessimism, 2382, 
250 


Order, may be only uniformity, 
79 


id. 

Organisms, exhibit nature acting 
for ends, 97; defined, 114; 
adapted to their place, 137. 

Origin of the idea of God, 11. 

Oxygen, 142. 


_ 


Pain and suffering, 246. 

Paley, 6, 87. 

Personality of God, how far in- 
dicated in the cosmological evi- 
dence, 73; as an attribute, 225. 

Philosophy, relation of Natural 
Theology to, 8. 

Planets, periodic times and math- 
ematical order, 174. 

Plato, 5, 45, 175. 

Plutarch, 37. 

Potytheism, 16-20. 

Porter, Noah, 114, 205. 

Preéstablished harmony between 
organisms and place, 138. 

Presumptive evidences, 25, 26, 
218. 

Primitive revelation, 12, 29. 


R 


Raymond de Sabunde, 5. 

Recognition of mind by mind, 
181. 

Relativity of knowledge, 62, 67. 


274 


Religion, distinguished from Nat- 
ural Theology, 4; relation of 
Natural Theology to, 7; uni- 
versal, 31. 

Renouf, P. Le Page, 19. 

Reville, 36. 

Rougé, Emanuel, 19. 


Ss 


Schelling, 15. 

Schmid, Rudolf, 161. 

Schmidt, Osear, 34. 

Schopenhauer, 178. 

Science, relation of Natural The- 
ology to, 8; unable to explain 
the origin of sensation, self- 
consciousness, and_ self-deter- 
mination, 41, 72, 203; assumes 
the law of causation, 63. 

Self-determination, 203. ~ 

Self-existence, 42, 50, 51, 224. 

Seneca, 5 

Sex as exhibiting final cause, 112. 

Smell, 101. 

Socinus, Faustus, 5. 

Socrates, 5. 

Sound, expressible in terms of 
mathematical thought, 173. 

Spencer, Herbert, 39. 

Spirituality, 227. 

Stat2, relation of Natural Theol- 
ogy to, 8. 

Strauss, 12, 34. 

Sapreme end in creation, 259. 


Lt 


Taste, 101. 
Teleological evidence, 25, 74, 219. 


INDEX. 


Theistic proof cumulative, 28, 
Thompson, Rev. R. A., 6. 
Time and space of God, 258. 
Transcendence of God, 253. 
Touch, 101. 

Tulloch, Rev. John, 6. 


U 


Uniformity in nature conditionat 
for human freedom, 248. 

Unity of God, 227. 

Universe, finite and dependent, 
65; unity of, 228. 

a of the idea of God, 


Wi 


Valves, provided in circulatory 
provision, 107, 109. 

Vedas, 5. 

Vegetable growths conformed to 
a rational order, 173. 

Voltaire, 17. 


Ww 


Water, 135; expanding below the 
freezing point, 136. 

Whevwell, 6. 

Wisdom an attribute of God, 230. 

World, viewed as an effect, 92; 
its ultimate end, 265. 

Wundt, 65. 


Z 
Zend Avesta, 5. 











Date Due 


WANS ‘44 





45M 8-37, 


Form 335. 


wut 


Div. 8, 
210 V15aN 514950 





